FIA urged to alter 'dangerous' qualifying.

two new rules were introduced this year as a result of mclaren actions on the racetrack last year. already this year, a new rule is proposed as a result of mclaren action on the race track . there is a common denominator to all of this.MC LAREN! have FIA ascertained why drivers ignored the warning of their team chief?? there wil be many suggestions of improvements, but one could be a single flying lap superpole for the top 6. anothe could be the introduction of a parc ferme shortly after the timing line, where any car not continuing on a full flying lap, would have to pull into. cars then to be returned to full parc ferme on a low loader by the stewards under the scrutiny of the teams.

The point in having to start the race with the same fuel load you end qualifying with was to allow slower teams to take risks run on light fuel loads and place higher up on the grid...
so far Mclaren and Ferrari have taken both pole positions BMW will get a couple but i don't see any other team getting to P1 in normal conditions.
So why not scrap the whole fuel thing and just let the cars go all out in Qualifying like the good old days! there will be less cars on track and subsequently less obstruction.
and fans will know that the fastest cars is actually on the pole position.

Keep the first two rounds the same and go to single lap qualifying for the last round. Oh, and scrap the fuel load rules. Just let them start the race with whatever fuel load they want.

I agree with Paul about scrapping the whole fuel thing. Why have cars in Q2 lapping faster than in Q3? another way of working this is letting the teams have 1 laps worth of fuel given back to them at the end of Q3, that way you have no need to cruse around.

They should let them pull off and park at the pit exit. No one is going to be leaving the pits that late anyway. We are only talking about 10 cars, it should not be that difficult.

Last year they had to be within 20% to get their fuel credit for the lap.
The FIA obviously didn't foresee that by taking that away that the teams would go fuel conserve mode as soon as they done their quick lap. A lacking of thinking things through properly by the FIA.
Due to the forecast of the possibilty of rain the teams adjusted their strategy and went out earlier. Two drivers didn't and were caught by all the cars cruising round, obviously their teams didn't think that one through and were trying to get better track conditions (FA does like to be last to complete his flying lap).

There were all dawdling on the way back to the pits - see the in-car footage of Massa waving to the crowd after he had taken pole as a prime example.
With all the money the tracks have to spend to keep up with FIA regs then why not have an 'escape' road after turn one that takes them backs to the pits after they have done their quick lap.
They could always go for the Super-Pole option like there is in World Superbikes.
Otherwise go back to 20% rule and give them a fuel credit.

quite simple, scrap the race fuel in qualifying. its the reason theyre going so slow, and the idea of it too mix up the grids has never truly worked, mixed grids in recent years have all been because of rain and so the system is a waste of time. scrap that and all will be fine. no need to actually change the system any other way. and as the session is only 10 mins, im sure most of the top10 cars would go out straight away anyway (maybe not the big two until the end mind you).

OR if you keep race fuel, ALL in/out laps through qualifying must be completed within a set lap-time from the stewards.

I think this could qualify as an overreaction on behalf of the FIA. Mistakes were made, nothing bad happened leave it at this for the moment.

Macbeth.given the possible consequences, this is hardly an over reaction. would you rather there be a death or serious incident before FIA were to take action. if there was, would you have been asking "why did the FIA take no action to prevent this" incidentally, cosworth wrote that massa was "dawdling back to pits". granted, but he was NOT on the racing line. as far as was visible on TV,ONLY LH and HK were on the racing line.

I totally agree that it would have been fine if not for the McLarens that were on the racing line. But still, slow cars on track is an accident waiting to happen, racing line or not. Some of the most simple & elegant solutions are right here on this board.

I like the idea of an "escape" road that leads to the pits(by CosworthDFV).

A more simple idea is Mark_'s which is to let the cars park or re-enter thru the pit exit if there's only about a minute left, as no one is going out anyways.

The one i like best is Mossop's idea which is to give everyone a full lap of fuel back. No need to conserve as they will all be getting back what they use coming in. Can't get any simpler than that!

Plus, when everyone comes in at full gallop, all the drivers get a chance to practice their pit entry procedure one last time.

Loud Lewis could use that to avoid getting on the gravel trap again in China hehehe
Sorry couldn't resist that one! ;)

Qualifying in F1 is utter ********.
They should do the same as in WSB - the fastest ten or so in normal qualifying go onto superpole, where the fastest one lap determines grid position. No slow cars in the way, no danger, no silly burning of fuel, instead maximum drama.

they should put qualifying back the way it was years ago where the teams can do as many laps as they like in the one hour of qualifying.

totally agree with the comment about massa,there was time left on the clock and he was busy celebrating and waving to the crowd because he had got pole upto that point,didn't think who may be coming along behind him,more interested in saying look at me i got pole,what a t i t,yes mclaren were biggest team at fault but they were all at it,in my opinion there should have been no penalty coz loads did it,fia should have just layed the law down for the next race and then they could have policed the problem more efectively....

did it not use to be 12 laps max not as many as you want

There is currently too great a risk of a Gilles Villeneuve/Jochen Mass style accident with slow cars wandering around on the racing line. I would prefer a single lap, top 6/8/10 shoot out, "super pole" too. The current early round knock out phases are fine by me - at least there is something happening most of the time. I does help to have the Formula1.com live timings as the commentators aren't interested in the field as a whole (see other discussions of the Jenson/Lewis show). I generally don't pay much attention during the 3rd segment as it is...

when i say qualifying years ago i mean in the days of piquet prost senna mansell those days qualifying was more exciting then. the days when qualifying was a free for all.

All the new formats since they scrapped the 12 laps in one hour have been pretty poor. And the whole qualifying on race fuel is pointless. Drop that rule first.

I believe the format was changed in the first place to stop the track being empty for the first 20 - 30 mins of Qual. Well make the session shorter. 12 laps and a 40 min session or something.

A lot of posts are about qualifying generally rather than the specific problem of slow cars on the in-lap. Nothing wrong with that but it's not strictly relevant.

It will be very surprising if the FIA has not addressed the slow car problem before Bahrain. The dangers are obvious and the teams will themselves want to avoid McLaren-style demotions.