Gary Anderson's qualifying solution

One of the hot Formula 1 topics at the moment is about how to get the cars that are entitled to run in the third part of qualifying to actually participate, instead of sitting in the garage saving tyres.

I'm sure we all have our own suggestions about this and I'm no exception. F1 and the people who are directly involved who can do something about these situations generally tend to act a bit like an oil tanker - slow to change course.

When I was more directly involved, as technical director at Jordan and then Stewart GP, Bernie Ecclestone would have taken all the team principals into a dark room, banged a few heads together and come up with a solution. I'm not sure where this style of management has gone, but I for one really do wish we went back to that.

Having had my gripe against the current lack of response from the powers that be, here's my proposed solution to the problem.

1. All 24 cars must start the race on the set of tyres with which they set their fastest qualifying lap.

Wording the regulation in this way would mean that, if it rained just before Q3 but was dry for the race, the top 10 qualifiers could use the rubber with which they had set their fastest times - whether that be in Q1 or Q2.

At the moment it's only the cars that run in the final qualifying session that have to start on their qualifying tyres. The teams that join Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari in Q3 know that they cannot beat those three teams, and that starting 10th, as opposed to seventh, is worthwhile if it means saving a set of new option tyres for the race.

2. As well as the 107 per cent rule for Q1, introduce a 105 per cent rule for Q2 and a 103 per cent rule for Q3.

If a driver is outside these target times, because they didn't run in the session in order to save tyres, had a mechanical problem or crashed, then a five-place grid penalty should be applied.

As you can see from the data below, I have based my percentages on the qualifying times from the recent rounds in Singapore and Japan. These 105 and 103 per cent rules are about correct, if you look at the times achieved by drivers in the qualifying session prior to the one in which they didn't compete (for example, if you look at the Q2 times of a driver who did not compete in Q3).

These percentages are achievable, but would still mean that a driver has to push - which is, after all, what we watch Formula 1 for.

If we returned to the days of Bernie running the show a few years ago, we would be implementing this change for this weekend's Korean Grand Prix. Why not? After all, the drivers' championship has been won and the constructors' championship is more or less on its way to Red Bull.

An immediate rule change would mean that we see more cars running in Q3, when we see the drivers really wringing the necks of their cars. That couldn't possibly do any harm, and would give us a great chance to see how it works over the final four race weekends of the season and whether any tweaking would be required before the 2012 season.