19/03/2016
NEWS STORY
New season gets off to worst possible start as new qualifying format proves shambolic and anticlimactic.
Despite the hard sell by some sections of the media before the session, today's qualifying format proved to be just as bad as many had feared.
This ill thought-out, rushed through concept, supposedly aimed at mixing up the grid and thereby making Sunday afternoon's more exciting, proved yet again that tinkering with the rules and introducing artificial concepts doesn't work.
Following an exciting final practice session, race fans were subjected to an hour of confusion as teams and drivers appeared to be caught out by the limitations of the new format.
Everything that fans had predicted would go wrong did go wrong, and consequently the fact that Lewis Hamilton took his fiftieth F1 pole passed by almost unnoticed.
Whilst Toto Wolff described the session as "rubbish", Christian Horner said the sport should "apologise to the fans", yet as team principals these two men must accept their share of the blame.
Whilst the sport needs some serious reworking, the previous qualifying format was one of the few things that didn't really need fixing, but once again the powers-that-be insisted that they know best and began rearranging the deckchairs...
What should have been a thrilling introduction to the new season, especially after the build-up in FP3 ended up an unmitigated disaster, a total let-down.
Carefully chosen words from team bosses and drivers are as meaningless as the 'your opinion is important to us' nonsense we hear from businesses and corporations every day. A sport already haemorrhaging fans cannot afford to take such a wild, reckless approach.
Be it the FIA, CVC, Bernie Ecclestone, the Strategy Group or whoever, someone needs to develop a taste for humble pie and fix this... PDQ.
Check out our Saturday gallery, here.