Analysis: F1 Qualifying Offers Fuel for Thought

Time was when Formula One strategy involved little more than a good stopwatch and a few basic calculations scribbled on the back of a sponsor's cigarette packet.

Nowadays you need a mind like a chess grand master with a post-graduate degree in computer programming.

The one-shot qualifying format introduced this season, and first aired at the Australian Grand Prix on Friday, is just one of a range of changes that could have Formula One fans of a certain age racking their tired brains.

Friday times, like pre-season testing, have always had a strong whiff of bluff but that is nothing compared with the riddle of the starting grid in 2003.

Friday's times now dictate the starting order for Saturday's decisive qualifying, with the fastest in the first session running last in the second. The old discarded Saturday qualifying was a straight demonstration of pure speed, macho gunslingers going flat out to be the main man. You knew who was fastest, even if tyres subsequently degraded or engines failed.

Now, spread out over two days with drivers speeding in isolation against the clock with one fast lap each, it is more a matter of cunning, strategy and deception.

Teams are not allowed to tune or refuel cars between qualifying and Sunday's start, meaning that some drivers may now decide to qualify on a heavier fuel load than others to give them a longer first stint in the race.

The fastest car may not be on pole. The pole car may be a decoy, gunning for a burst of glory to please sponsors before peeling into the pits at the first opportunity and then regrouping towards the rear of the field.

It will be harder to tell which cars are really fast and which are 'sandbagging' - masking their speed by playing around with fuel loads - in qualifying.

Chess Game

International Automobile Federation (FIA) president Max Mosley has long argued that overtaking is not everything in Formula One and that strategy, like chess, can be fascinating. McLaren's David Coulthard was also talking the board game in Melbourne on Friday.

"It's a bit more difficult to understand, yes," he said of the new format. "I think that (chess) is a very good analogy. Qualifying won't mean what it used to mean. The pole man used to have a very good chance of winning the Grand Prix if he kept the reliability. Now it won't necessarily be the case.

"You'll get half the picture at the first pitstop, and then presuming there is another stop you will know where everyone stands as there is unlikely to be a great deal of overtaking after that."

First there is the headache of working out what fuel strategy to adopt, a decision that has to be taken by all teams before Saturday's session. Williams technical director Patrick Head explained recently that the new format could throw the teams' computer simulations into tilt.

"All of the teams, and I'm sure even Minardi, have got various programmes of differing degrees of sophistication for predicting how much fuel they should have in the car for the beginning of the race," he said.

"There's all sorts of statistical things in there that...look at all the different possibilities and come up with statistical chances of getting more or less points in the races.

"You could put into your programme pretty much what the speed of those (rival) cars was with, say, five kilos of fuel because you knew from qualifying how fast the cars were."

It will not be so simple now.

Head suggested that some teams, knowing their car was considerably faster than others, might deliberately slow down on the Friday to mislead rivals and then put in extra fuel for Saturday.

The car would still be fast enough to secure pole with the added weight but with a much reduced margin.

"At the end of the day, you only want to be on pole by .01 of a second," said Head. "There's no value in being on pole by one second.

"So you'll look at it and say 'Wow, this is going to be a really good race because David Coulthard or Montoya is only eight thousandths of a second behind Michael' but actually it won't give you any idea.

"They'll all go off and then Montoya will come into the pits and Michael will go gaily on for another 15 laps or something. It's certainly going to mix it up. It is quite likely that you won't really see who's going to win the race until the last 15 laps or so."