Qualifying Thoughts

So, what did we think about the new qualifying? Well, the first two knock-out sessions really weren't that exciting, other than wondering if the Renaults were leaving it a bit too late. If anything, it showed that if you give teams a time-limited session, teams will always leave it until the last minute before going out. This of course gave people like Ralf Schumacher problems when the sesson was red flagged after Kimi's accident.

But the real benefit from the new format came in the last session, with some real excitement towards the end while Button and Massa challenged Michael's record-equalling pole time. Even the first few laps looked quite interesting, with more overtaking going on than we normally see in a race. But as soon as Michael suddenly went 3 seconds quicker, it was apparent that the earlier laps were just exercises in using fuel. It's by no means perfect, and there's still the question of how much fuel each team is carrying. But it's definitely an improvement.