The old 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' adage is slightly difficult to pin on Formula 1. It's not as if things are not broken - they frequently are - it is just that the remedies introduced are often worse.
The questionable decision-making of the sport's governing body was called into question again today, as the sport's new qualifying system looks set to be scrapped after just one day. It was used at qualifying in Melbourne today ahead of tomorrow's Australian Grand Prix, and Bernie Ecclestone seemed to write the system's epitaph in terming it 'pretty crap'.
The new system is thus. In a bid to add more excitement to qualifying, drivers were to race and drop out one-by-one every ninety seconds, leaving a two-car shootout for pole position.
Instead of a dramatic climax in the final few minutes, a number of teams chose not to race and instead save the rubber of their tyres for the race itself. Such was the descent into farce, there had not been a single car on the circuit for the final three minutes prefacing the waving of the chequered flag.
The guy who waved the flag did so with all of the cars parked up. Sebastian Vettel had even changed into jeans. The system was introduced a month before the season, and Vettel was scathing:
I don’t know why everyone is surprised. We had to wait and see and now we have seen and it isn’t very exciting. It is a bit crazy at the beginning with everyone pushing and trying to get a lap in. It is busy, but for no reason. But for the people in the grandstands, it is not the right way when there are no cars to see and you want to see people pushing to the limit for pole position.
In true Eccleston style, he washed his hands of the incident. For a CEO to be so consistently innocent of major incidents in the sport is remarkable, and this was no different:
It was pretty awful. But it wasn’t my idea at all. I am sure we can change it for Bahrain. We should be man enough – we gave it a try, it didn’t work, let’s find a new way of doing it.
Lewis Hamilton eventually took pole position - rather sheepishly - ahead of tomorrow's race.
[Guardian]
