Qualifying to be Tweaked by FIA

Qualifying looks to be changing again, only this time just slightly. Soon after in 2006 when F1 qualifying was split into 3 15 minute sections, concerns were raised when the final 10 teams in the final 15 minute pole shootout phase began spending a lot of time driving around burning off fuel in effort to make the car as light as possible. The main concern was ‘image’ in that environmentally, this was just not good and completely unnecessary.

Now, the Spanish Press are reporting that the FIA are about to tweak qualifying in that the final 15 minute qualifying phase would be shortened by 5 minutes and that 5 minutes added onto the first qualifying phase, effectively making it now 20 minutes. The object is to remove ‘fuel burning’ time from the final phase and force teams to get on with posting fast times. This will be a little more environmentally correct and add the challenge and excitement it was designed for. In turn, with the stolen 5 minutes being added to the first qualifying phase, more time would be given to drivers to post a ‘best time’ to get into the second phase and keep their tails off the back of the grid.

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