Journey into the unknown: Analysis of the new qualifying system

We've all had a few months to ponder the new knockout qualifying format, but none of us will really know how it will pan out until Bahrain. Even that first Saturday of the season might not tell the full story, and it could take two or three races before we really know how it works.

There's been a lot of talk about it being too complicated, but the basic system of elimination could not be any simpler for us observers: the slower guys get weeded out, and then the top 10 just go as fast as they can at the end.

But for the participants it presents a huge challenge, and the drivers and teams will be walking a tightrope every weekend. There's absolutely no guarantee that the 10 quickest runners will make it safely through and take their rightful places at the front of the grid, and if anything there's even more chance of something oddball happening than under the one lap system.

New schedule

The change to Saturday's schedule starts in the morning. Previously we had two 45-minute sessions running from 9:00am to 9:45am and from 10:15am to 11:00am, but those have now been combined into a single period from 11:00am to 12:00pm. Teams no longer have that half hour break between sessions, which allowed them to make major set-up changes without losing track time.

More significantly, they have lost half an hour of potential running compared to last year. That is not insignificant. Because of the fragility of the new V8s, and the need to run multiple laps in qualifying, most drivers will run as little as possible on Friday and do most of their running on Saturday morning.

The Saturday practice session takes on greater significance than before for other reasons.

Until last year, teams had to choose between the two available tyre compounds by the start of running on Saturday morning. Now that decision is deferred until qualifying. So Saturday AM will become even more important in terms of tyres.

Of course, teams might already have made a clear decision based on Friday's work (especially if they have a third car), but conditions on Saturday will be closer to those expected on race day. In addition, the top runners are going to have to do quick laps in qualifying both with and without fuel, so teams will also have to use that session to optimise the cars, as best they can, for both conditions.

It won't be easy to get everything done in that hour. Significantly, if there is a red flag or delay of any kind, no time will be added on at the end. The action will stop at noon to guarantee that there are two clear hours prior to the start for qualifying at 2:00pm.

A couple of normal red flags could reduce that already meagre one hour to just 40 minutes, and a more serious incident - maybe involving barrier damage - could wipe out the whole session. Anyone who gambled by doing minimal laps on Friday could be in trouble.

Managing tyres

Every driver now has seven sets of dry tyres for the course of the weekend (the rules now specify sets rather than a total number of tyres, to avoid any dodgy misinterpretations). This is a change from the four sets of last year, when of course the same tyres were used for qualifying and the race.

Obviously there will be a lot of emphasis on how the tyres are managed throughout the weekend, especially in qualifying. Will everyone throw on new tyres at the end of each of the three sessions? Will the quicker guys attempt to scrape through the first (and even second) session on older, scrubbed rubber, like an athlete doing just enough to qualify for an Olympic final? This year you can start on new tyres, so if possible the top runners will attempt to save two or three new sets for Sunday.

The start of qualifying means that parc ferme conditions are in operation, using exactly the same format as during the one-lap era, which means no changes of parts during (or after) the session unless they are damaged or broken.

Prior to 2003, when everyone was running at once in traditional qualifying, drivers would fine-tune aero or suspension set-up between runs. That is not allowed now, with the exception of adjusting the front wing, which was permitted under the one-lap system. Thus, a driver returning after his first lap demanding improvements is going to be disappointed.

The qualifying format itself is straightforward. All 22 cars will be out in the first 15 minutes, and it promises to be hectic - expect a lot of blue flags and waved fists, especially at Monaco!

As was normal prior to the single lap system, drivers will once again face the frustration of being subject to random weight checks on return to the pits, which could cost them track time and even stop them getting out for their final runs.

New procedures

There is one major novelty in the way the first two sessions will operate. When the chequered flag comes out, that's it - the timing will stop, and if you are still on a lap, it won't count. So you might as well just trundle back to the pits.

In the past, if you crossed the line just a second before the flag came out, you could still complete that lap. Now you will have to cross the line a couple of minutes before the flag comes out, in order to get round and record a time. Allowing for the time to get out of the pitlane, it means that typically you'd have to leave your garage some three minutes from the end of the session in order to get in one final lap. Thus, the session starts to look pretty short!

This system applies only at the end of the first and second periods, however, and not at the end of the crucial top ten run-off, when it's business as usual.

If there are any stoppages in this (or any other) qualifying session, the lost time will be added on, in contrast to morning practice. However, using the above figures you can see that if a red flag comes much after the 12-minute mark, the chances of being able to fit in an extra lap are slim. So there will be no point in returning to the track at the restart.

After the first 15-minute session, the slowest six cars - to be highlighted in red on the official timing screens - will be eliminated, leaving 16 for the second session. A driver has to actually set a lap time to get through to the next round, so if seven fail to record a lap, none of them will be eligible to continue.

Those who don't set a time will ultimately line up in the following order: a driver who started a flying lap will take precedence over a driver who left the pits but didn't start a flying lap, who in turn will start ahead of anyone who didn't leave the pits. If more than one driver falls into any category, they will line up in numerical order.

There is a guaranteed five-minute break between sessions, even if the first one is delayed for any reason. The FIA has the option to extend the break for things like barrier repairs, and if penalties have to be assessed - for example, if a driver who has qualified for the next round is charged with speeding under yellow flags.

The FIA stewards, who will have to deal with the matter as quickly as possible, have the power to dock one or more of a driver's best times. If that drops him out of the top 16, then someone else could get a last minute reprieve and make it through after all.

The timing screens will notify everyone that an investigation is under way, so that anyone who stands to benefit from a penalty can prepare the car for the next session. It seems obvious those in, say, 17th and 18th should not wait for any signals and just get on and prepare for the next session anyway, until they know for sure that all the quicker cars are safe.

The format for the second session, in which 16 cars participate, is exactly the same as the first. The timing screens are re-set to zero so any earlier times don't count, and once again the slowest six are eliminated, leaving 10 cars for the 20-minute finale.

The 12 eliminated cars remain under the parc ferme conditions, as established over the last three years, except that any amount of fuel can be added before the start of the race.

During this second five-minute break, the top 10 runners dump what is nominally their race fuel load into the tank. To speed things along, they are allowed to use the Intertechnique race refuelling rigs, with proper safety precautions. The refuelling has to be completed before the final session starts.

Again all earlier times are cancelled, and the top 10 qualifiers now have 20 minutes to finalise the grid. As is well known by now, the more laps they do, the more fuel they use up, and the lighter they will be at the end of the session. And that, in theory, is when they will put on one last set of new tyres and really go for it.

However, there is a major drawback that drivers have not faced in qualifying since 2002. A yellow flag will effectively neutralise the track, and anybody deemed not to have slowed down sufficiently faces a penalty. If it happens near the end and you are on your hot lap, you are stuffed. If you back off, you go slow, if you go too fast, you could get a penalty.

So leaving all your eggs in the last-lap basket could be quite risky. Of course, the same applies to any top runners cocky enough to only go out in the closing minutes of either of the first two sessions, hoping that one quick lap will get them through. All it will take is Yuji Ide in a gravel trap at 2:13pm and some Renault, Honda and McLaren drivers could be among those eliminated. Teams will no doubt soon learn that they should put a banker lap in early.

As in the past, traffic will be a major issue throughout the qualifying process, but at least in that critical final 20 minutes there will be just 10 quick cars out.

Another fascinating aspect is what happens to those who set a time that gets them through to the next stage, but subsequently spin off or stop with a mechanical gremlin (and you can forget all about running back to take the spare car, as we saw so often in the past). To participate in the next round, the car has to physically get back to the pits, even if it's on a tow rope.

Most modern tracks have internal access roads, which improves the chances of getting a car back. But others don't, such as Melbourne, Monaco and Silverstone, to name but three. All abandoned cars have to come back via the circuit itself, after the session. Significantly, there will be a window of just a couple of minutes between sessions one and two, and two and three, during which the track will be open to recovery vehicles.

Whether you get your car back really is a question of the efficiency of the marshals, where the car is parked, and sheer luck. Indeed, there have been suggestions that the only fair way to deal with it is that any car that doesn't make it back to the pits under its own steam at the end of the session should not be allowed to participate in the next.

Remember that there's no refuelling after the start of session 3, so if you get the car back to the garage just as the action is getting underway, you are stuck.

The fuel challenge

At the end of the top-10 session, all the cars will be weighed with and without driver, and any car that has stopped on the track will also be retrieved and weighed. The FIA will then determine how many genuine laps each driver completed in the 20 minutes.

There will be a 110% rule to stop drivers crawling round or 'turning down' the engine and claiming credit for laps that didn't really use much fuel. This percentage will be measured not over the full lap, but a lap minus the pit straight, using the safety car lines that cross the circuit at the timing points. Leaving out the pit straight will ensure that time lost driving in and out of the pits isn't part of the equation, so all laps will count, if the driver is going at a reasonable racing speed.

These 110% times will not be visible to the teams, but everyone will no doubt keep tabs on what others are up to, using normal sector times as a guide. If the lap time is one minute and 20 seconds, then 110% represents a discrepancy of just 8 seconds, and it won't be hard to spot if anyone is trying it on.

At some point in the year there is bound to be controversy about how many laps a particular driver is credited with - don't forget races can be won or lost by stopping one lap later than the next guy. The FIA will take weather conditions and red flags into account when totting them up.

Using a fuel consumption figure, one lap of fuel can be returned to the cars for each lap completed in the third session. The consumption figure will vary between circuits, and is also open to change as the FIA learns more about the new V8s, as current circuit data is based on V10s.

It's long been clear that the new format opens up the possibility for the driver in 11th on the grid to be a lot heavier at the start of the race than the guy in 10th, making for interesting strategic permutations. But it could be more complex than that.

There is nothing in the rules to say that you have to go for an outright time in the last 20 minutes. So just suppose that you scrape through in 10th, and the pattern of times suggests that 10th is probably the best you're going to do, however light you run in the third session. You could fill up the car to your optimum race level, and then not leave the garage during the final 20 minutes. You would still be allowed to start 10th, but you could have a more competitive fuel level than the guys ahead, and you will have saved some engine mileage. What is there to lose?

Of course race tyre changes put the emphasis back on lighter fuel loads for the first stint compared with last year, but there will be circumstances where it pays to be heavy, and staying in the garage could be worth a punt.

Who knows, as the season goes on this sort of strategy could even creep forward a couple of rows, so that in the end only two or three teams are slugging it out for the top qualifying slots, and subsequently finding themselves way lighter than the rest come the race.

There's always been some confusion about who lines up where when several drivers have been penalised, but that has been clarified in the 2006 Sporting Regulations. Anyone with a 10-place penalty (engine change) that puts them behind the slowest car from the first session will be ahead of those automatically sent to the back of the grid (post-qualifying engine change) and finally those who've had their qualifying times deleted for an indiscretion.

Plenty of food for thought, you will agree. The formbook suggests that the six cars eliminated after the first session in Bahrain will belong to the MF1, Toro Rosso and Super Aguri teams. But with so many potential hurdles, do you really think that all too obvious pattern will unfold at Sakhir, never mind at all 18 races? And which six do you see failing to make it through the second session? For one reason or another, there will be some surprises...