JANUARY 25, 2008

Qualifying to change

It has been confirmed after weeks of rumours that qualifying will be altered in 2008 in order to make it more entretaining and to get rid of the troublesome "fuel burn" period, which was seen by all concerned as a serious "own goal" in the process of giving Formula 1 a more environmentally-friendly image.

It has been confirmed after weeks of rumours that qualifying will be altered in 2008 in order to make it more entretaining and to get rid of the troublesome fuel burn period, which was seen by all concerned as a serious own goal in the process of giving Formula 1 a more environmentally-friendly image. The Q3 session which was previously 20 minutes in length will now be reduced to just 10 minutes which will give the teams time to do two or perhaps three qualifying runs for those who wish to try for a better qualifying position.

There is now talk that once qualifying is over the weights of the cars ought to be published so that the media can explain what happened in the knowledge that they are not guessing strategies. There is a decent argument that this makes sense given that teams cannot change the settings of the car at that point and the knowledge of who is running what may add to the interest in the race - and will make it easier for TV commentators to explain what is going on.