Symonds Calls for Qualifying Rethink

Renault's director of engineering Pat Symonds has added his weight to calls for Formula One bosses to give serious consideration to changing the sport's current qualifying format after intense criticism of the system at the Australian Grand Prix.

But rather than bemoan the aggregate format that has upset several drivers and team bosses, Symonds believes that the biggest problem with the current qualifying solution is that the final session takes place on Sunday mornings.

Symonds, whose team have marked themselves out as serious World Championship contenders after Giancarlo Fisichella's victory in the season opening event, believes the best way forward will be for F1 to go back to the timetable it had in 2003 - with first qualifying on Friday and the second session on Saturday.

"I think we have got the rhythm of the build-up to the race wrong," said Symonds. "The Sunday papers should be able to give fans a considered and meaningful judgement of what is going to happen in the race that afternoon - which means knowing the qualifying result.

"Equally, from a team point of view, the Sunday workload is perhaps too intense: there is very little time to plan strategy, and repairing a car damaged in qualifying will be a very hard task.

"The benefit of the Sunday session has been increased on-track action, but in my view, that is the point and purpose of support races, something racing enthusiasts also enjoy. Sunday morning should feature junior formulae, such as the GP2 series we will see this year and some saloon racing, to build up to the Grand Prix as the pinnacle of the event."

When asked what solution he would propose, Symonds said: "Leaving aside the additional test session we ran that year, I would like to see us revert to the 2003 timetable this season, with qualifying on Friday and Saturday, but with aggregate times. However, I don't think the current format is by any means drastically wrong.

"To maintain credibility, I think we will only get one chance to make further changes to the format this year and for that reason, it will be important not to rush into anything. We have not yet seen how the format works with constant conditions through the weekend and it is still too early to make a definitive judgement. There may be tweaks to be made, but they are not fundamental revisions."