Under the new rules for the new season, the teams will now find themselves having to complete their first qualifying run on Fridays. A further qualifying session on Saturday will decide the grid, but now the teams have to cope with the added factor that the fuel that they have left in their cars after qualifying is what the car has to start the race with. Do you run a light car in qualifying and have to stop early in the race or a heavy car to ensure that you can run for longer in the race, with the result that your qualifying times will be slower.

The order in which the cars will complete their qualifying run on Saturday will be based on the Friday times, but with the cars running in reverse order with the slowest first and fastest last.

These rule will see various teams adopting quite different strategies. Some teams may wish to ensure that come Saturday they can post a time early in qualifying to ensure that they do not have to deal with such factors as the weather hindering them from setting a quick time. In order to do this they would have to set a slow time on Friday.

McLaren's David Coulthard commented on the possible strategies by saying: "With forecasting the way it is nowadays, if you were to find out that they were expecting rain on Saturday and they were expecting rain towards the end of the (qualifying) session then you might not want to qualify quickest on Friday, you might want to actually qualify slowest so you can go first on Saturday and get the opportunity to have the dry track. I think it's still going to be tactical.

The combination of such strategies is endless but will they have the effect of producing qualifying sessions and races that will be exciting for the public.

In 2002 we had the sight of drivers going out in a car that was setup for completing a series, or in some cases one single lap, laps during qualifying. All the drivers would run their cars in such a qualifying setup in order to extract the maximum performance from the car. Any strategies for the race were totally independent of what took place during qualifying.

Now with these new rules qualifying will be based around what strategy the team wants to run during the race. Gone are the days of having drivers going out to set the quickest times.

In 2002 Juan Pablo Montoya made a name for himself by setting seven poles during the season. Will we such a repeat of such a feat in 2003, it is most doubtful. Coulthard added: "I think what we're losing is the opportunity to see grand prix cars absolutely running at their maximum in qualifying.

"The reality is that, somewhere like Monaco, it would be an advantage to be able to qualify last on Saturday - so therefore to be quickest on Friday - because the track gets quicker as it gets more and more (tyre) rubber."

Ferrari's Michael Schumacher also spoke of the new rules by saying: "I'm not too keen on the idea of not allowing refuelling between the second qualifying session and the race though."

As for the race we could quite likely have to deal with the sight of the slower cars qualifying at the front of the grid, while the quicker cars would have to work their way through the field. Based on races in the past where slower cars have been able to hold up faster ones for sometime, seeing the faster car lose considerable amounts of time, ruining their races.

Is all this strategy going to make Formula One better for the viewing public, I doubt it. The public could find themselves have to deal with grids that seem to be back the front and drivers in the faster cars going slower than their slower rivals in order to maximise their qualifying opportunities. After a few races I would hope to see the FIA realise the error of its changes as Formula One is meant to be a sport based on the concept of drivers getting their cars to go the fastest in both qualifying and the race, not some handicap form of race where unless you have the luxury of inside information the whole thing could simply be all too confusing.