New F1 Qualifying Debuted In Australia And It Was Spectacularly Awful

“The new qualifying format is pretty rubbish.” That was the immediate reaction from Mercedes boss Toto Wolff to the elimination-style system after its debut in Australia. It’s fair to say the vast majority of fans, team bosses and drivers agree.

Qualifying didn’t even need changing. It wasn’t ever the problem. But yet the new format was announced towards the end of February. There were concerns it wouldn’t be ready in time. Sadly for us, it was.

What we witnessed during qualifying at the Albert Park Circuit was quite strange and exactly what the new format was trying to avoid. The first few minutes in Q1 and Q2 were pretty frantic, so that was nice to see. There was lots of running in the opening stages but once drivers started to be eliminated, everyone just returned to the garages and waited for the clock to run down 90 seconds. So we basically got live reaction of a driver who had been sitting in the garage for a few minutes knowing they would drop out of qualifying next.

So while the starts of sessions were actually OK, the ends of the first two sessions were underwhelming, dull and disappointing. This is the time where we want to see drivers fighting it out on track for clean air and pushing 100 per cent, not sat twiddling their thumbs and climbing out of the cars.

Another big issue was the fact that drivers were eliminated mid-way through a hot lap. Both Haas cars would have improved and potentially moved up the order had the chequered flag not meant their laps were immediately worthless.

It was quite bizarre really, seeing a driver pushing like hell only for the lap to actually count for nothing. They might as well have aborted it and some did, which is even more frustrating for the show. The tiny countdown clock and lack of on-screen graphics signalling an elimination also meant it was tough to follow even when watching on TV. I ended up spending more time watching the results graphic in the left-hand corner than the actual action.

Q1 and Q2 was a bit of a mixed bag, some mistakes were made by teams, meaning they either couldn’t get out on track in time or missed out on laps being completed. But Q3 was even worse: we didn’t see any new laps being completed in the final few minutes. The order was already set, Lewis Hamilton had taken pole position.

Sebastian Vettel even had a radio message after the first runs were completed saying they wouldn’t be going out again. While this is probably partly the fault of the teams for settling for the positions they were in, we still didn’t see the thrilling two-way battle for pole position between the Mercedes duo that those who put the rule in place thought would happen.

It’s also worth adding that while it was dull and confusing for fans at home, it must have been even harder to follow at the track, with the lack of TV screens, only commentary to rely on and a lack of cars actually on the circuit. So overall, it bombed pretty hard and sparked some strong opinions from fans, drivers and even team bosses who voted to introduce it.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff told Sky Sports:

“I’m the first one to say we shouldn’t be speaking bad about things on TV, but I think the new qualifying format is pretty rubbish. We need to discuss that [whether to change or drop it]. Everybody is trying to do their best to improve the show.

“Sometimes when we find out we haven’t improved the show but we have made it worse, we need to sit down and say what can be done, can we come back [to the old format]. I think that discussion is going to take place.”

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, said:

“We should apologise to fans, as that’s not what qualifying should be. The intentions were well meaning but we have to accept we got it wrong, accept it quickly, and we should go back to what we had in time for the next race, as what we had was not good for Formula 1.”

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel added:

“I don’t see the point why everyone is surprised. We all said what is going to happen. It happened. We were told to wait and see. Now we saw and I don’t think it was very exciting. It was a bit crazy in the beginning with all the cars pushing and trying to do a lap before they get kicked out so managing traffic is busy but for no reason because the time is there in the session to do it.”

F1 legend Niki Lauda said “this is a big mistake” and the “worst decision in F1” while the championship’s boss Bernie Ecclestone described it as “pretty crap” to Autosport.

Hopefully that’s the last we see of it. What do you make of the new qualifying system? Did you enjoy it or think it was abysmal? Let us know in the comments!