Formula One will revert to the old system of qualifying for next month’s race in Bahrain following the debacle of the new elimination format, reports said Sunday.
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Kimi Raikkonen of Finland drives the Scuderia Ferrari SF16-H Ferrari 059/5 turbo during the Australian Formula One Grand Prix at Albert Park on March 20, 2016 in Melbourne, Australia.
Manor Racing’s Pascal Wehrlein was the first man eliminated under the new knock-out qualifying format, which whittles down the field at 90-second intervals. Or at least, that was the plan.
There were no cars on the track for the final three minutes of qualifying after Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton locked up pole position.
Asked whether the format should and could be changed before the second round of the championship in Bahrain on April 3, Ecclestone replied “Yes”.
Hamilton set the fastest time in opening practice when there was a small window of dry-weather tire use, and was quickest again in the second practice when only the intermediate and wet-weather tires were used.
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff, a key player on the F1 strategy group that voted in favour of the new qualifying format despite warnings of such a possible anti-climactic finish, admitted it needed immediate review. “We absolutely loved it and I’m super excited”, said Rosberg.
Raikkonen will start from fourth on the grind in Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix after qualifying 1.196 seconds behind pole sitter Lewis Hamilton.
Rosberg became the first victim of the sport’s new radio rules which outlaw a lot of radio communication between pit and driver so as to make drivers make their own judgments.
“I take my hat off to the team”, sad Hamilton “What they have done is raised the bar once more and for a third season [in a row]”.
Rosberg claimed P2 while Vettel settled for P3 to end a thrilling morning qualifying session in Melbourne.
“I think firstly we should apologise to the fans and the viewers because that’s not what qualifying should be, it should crescendo into something”, Horner said. “It was done for the promoters, to try to give them a better show, and I can’t see that we’ve done that”. A good result for Force India, they get to choose which tyres they start on and we can expect to see them on the soft tyre and looking to one stop.
“I enjoyed driving the vehicle in qualifying, we got the set-up just right. The team’s been pushing very hard and as I said we have a long year ahead of us”. So it is closer than you think but it is still a decent gap right now for us.
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Daniel Ricciardo was the quicker of the Red Bulls with the eighth-best time, while McLaren’s Fernando Alonso’s was 11th quickest, one ahead of teammate Jenson Button.
