Knocked Out by the Qualifiers

Just over a week before the 2006 F1 season kicks off @ Bahrain and all the teams are busy putting in the final touches to their cars for the season opener, except of course for Super Aguri who I presume are still trying to figure out exactly how slow thier car is gonna be. Renault have shown in testing that they have a really pacy and reliable car, Honda have shown some pace and so have Mc Laren and Ferrari. Looks like we will have the most open season in recnt times with at least 5 drivers fighting for the top spot. Fernando would be eager to defend his title and thus become the youngest to do so, Kimi on the other hand would want to set aside the disappoinment of last season and win his maiden title. The stage is set for a classic.

If 2005 was all about tyres, 2006 may be all about Saturdays with the new knock-out qualifiers promising more excitment and lots of confusion and debate. Much has been written about the new format and many experts are very critical of it. I think that is being too hasty and sceptical, however, many aspects of the new format do puzzle me, like:

• Will the cars be allowed to change tyres during the session?
• Are the 12 cars that are allowed to refuel also allowed to make changes in the setup?
• For the fastest 10 cars only those laps where the driver had set time within 10% of his fastest lap will counted when calculating the fuel the team would be entitled to add after the session. Now will this quanta of fuel be different for different teams depending on their fuel consumption rate or is it some fixed quantity decided by the FIA?
  
• What when a driver on his flying lap comes up behind another one on his out-lap? Will we have blue flags waving or does the onus lie on the first driver to overtake the other one.
• If there is a crash does the safety car come out? Does the clock stop till the track is declared safe?

I hope the first few races answer all these questions. But, what I like about this new format is that it is more fair than the previous ones. At least it negates the effects of changing track and weather conditions, but on the other hand denies us the fun of having slower cars gambling with fuel strategies and starting from the front. Also mistakes made during the qualifiers would go unpunished as the drivers are allowed to run as many laps as they choose to.

Another observation I would like to make here is that teams running a 3rd car on Fridays have an advantage. With the engines having to last two race weekends the new format means that the engines will have to last an extra two hours of running. So the teams who are not running a third car on Fridays may prefer to play it cool in the free practice sessions. This might adversly affect their tyre choice and setup.

Although complex and complicated the qualifiers promise to be as interesting as the race itself. But like most fans am fairly certain that this new pattern will not last for more than two seasons. Given FIA's history am not sure if it would last the whole of this season ( I still fail to understand why was the two lap qualifiers introduced last year was scrapped mid season ). It would also be interesting to find out if there are any loopholes in this pattern, and if any, which team will be the first one to pounce on it and take "advantage". So let us all wait for the 11th and hope we have a cracker of a season.