Qualifying gets more criticism

Although talk over the winter that the format would almost certainly be changed before the start of the season came to nothing, it has not stopped a raft of big names believing the switch is wrong.

And amid the backdrop of massive changes to the aerodynamic, tyre and engine regulations this year, Trulli believes that his biggest worry is actually the new qualifying format.

"For me the biggest concern is the second qualifying being one day after the first qualifying," he said during a break at testing in Barcelona this week.

"This means that the Sunday newspapers won't be able to give the grid order to their readers and the same will happen with all the TV channels that won't be broadcasting the second qualifying session.

"For the drivers and the teams the biggest problem is that what was already complicated last year - predicting how the car would work with more fuel, after setting your time in first qualifying - will be even more complicated, because you'll be doing the second qualifying about 20 hours after the first, with different temperatures, wind direction and all that.

"And the first lap you'll do on Sunday will be your qualifying lap, because there's no previous practice. So you don't know how the track is and you don't know if everything is OK with the car, because you don't even do an installation lap - it's out of the pits and into qualifying!"

If the qualifying format proves a huge disaster at the start of the season, it will still take a unanimous decision from the teams to try and get it changed before the start of 2006.

Last season, the double Saturday session proved hugely unpopular but the teams could never agree amongst themselves how to replace it - so the format stayed the same for the rest of the year.