New details of the plan to spice up qualifying for 2014 have emerged.
Last week, it emerged that at a meeting in Bahrain on February 21, F1’s major players will move to ensure the final ‘Q3’ segment is exciting under the radically different regulations. The fear is that, to preserve tyres and for reasons of reliability, drivers will sit out the session for other tactical reasons. It was reported that a likely solution would be to supply drivers with an extra set of tyres for the final ‘Q3’ hitout.
Writing in Autosprint, the Italian correspondent Roberto Chinchero said the extra set, only eligible to be used in Q3, will be the ‘option’ – or fastest – tyre. According to the reported proposal, drivers will also be encouraged to push hard in Q3 by ending the rule that required cars to start the race on the last tyre used in the top-ten hitout.
Now, top-ten drivers will start on the tyre with which they set their best Q2 time. The Q3 changes, likely to increase track activity, will mean the session is extended from 10 to 12 minutes, giving drivers more time to fit in their additional ‘runs’. And the lengthened Q3 will mean Q1 is reduced from 20 to 18 minutes. Meanwhile, for drivers who do not make it into Q3, they will be given an extra set of ‘option’ tyres for the race, also discouraging them from saving tyres in qualifying.
Info: GMM, Image: Ferrari
