The 2016 season has started at testing anyways at circuit du Catalonia.

An interesting tidbit for the coming season will be the updated qualifying format.

Planned F1 elimination process:

Q1
- 16 minutes
- After 7 minutes, slowest driver eliminated
- Slowest driver eliminated every 1 minute 30 seconds thereafter until the chequered flag
- 7 drivers eliminated, 15 progress to Q2

Q2
- 15 minutes
- After 6 minutes, slowest driver eliminated
- Slowest driver eliminated every 1 minute 30 seconds thereafter until the chequered flag
- 7 drivers eliminated, 8 progress to Q3

Q3
- 14 minutes
- After 5 minutes, slowest driver eliminated
- Slowest driver eliminated every 1 minute 30 seconds thereafter until the chequered flag
- 2 drivers left in final 1 minute 30 seconds

Final eliminations in each session will occur at the chequered flag, not when the time is up.


It certainly will lead to some interesting sessions, especially at courses where wet weather comes into play.
While I did think the staggered sessions with elimination was a good step forward, I think this format is just stupid.

 

Should prevent ferrari from accidentally getting their eliminated in Q1/Q2 haha. But on the flip side the back markers are going to less tv coverage which is a bummer.

 

I would like to say what does it matter.... but only in F1 is qualifying the real race unless there is bad weather on race day.

 

I wonder how this minute 30 rule works with tracks that are longer than a 1:30 laptime. If you're at the bottom after the first elimination, you're basically shit out of luck if you're anywhere near the start line.

 

Watching F1 replay. Wow, what a crazy race!

 

The beginning of the race was awesome!

 

It was a good one for a change, even in dry conditions. People were actually passing one another for a change.

 

At least they finally crapped that profoundly stupid qualifying format.
Had they retained it during a rainy qualifying with a crash half the field wouldn't have qualified.

Agreed, Quite the race, maybe they should have a lottery to place cars after qualifying.
let everybody struggle to get their spots and then randomly draw 4 pairs of positions and swap them.
or randomly turn on sprinklers.

OK I was joking don't let bernie hear about it, that idiot would do it.

 

So Bernie is now offending at least half the population: http://www.autoblog....-enough-for-f1/

 

I had a boss who fond of the phrase "it's said there is no such thing as bad publicity unless they spell your name wrong"
I believe bernie embraces that philosophy.