By subh
March 24 2004

Are fans and television viewers happy with the new arrangement? Instead of a pair of single-lap sessions, on Friday and Saturday, the two are now run back to back. This makes for a long procedure, and also means rapid turnaround for some of the teams. Maybe it is a bit early to judge, but the verdict on this has not been altogether favourable. For one thing, some television broadcasters have been unable to justify live coverage of the full qualifying procedure. The length of the two sessions is a lot to sit through, and can ‘interfere’ with other prime time scheduled programming.

Additionally, the nature of the set-up is not altogether fair on the ‘minor’ teams. This year, the first session’s runs are determined by the previous race result. This means that most of the fast guys will run early. Inevitably, the slowest drivers are likely to run towards the end of the first session. However, session two is run in reverse order to the first one, with the top men now going last.

For the likes of Minardi, this will usually mean only minimal time for set-up changes, or any other alterations necessary for strategic purposes. In contrast, the Ferraris and Williamses of this world will often have most of both sessions open to them to make any changes they need to.

Is this the best way to do it? How would you change things? Register your vote on our poll, or leave your thoughts on our message board.