F1 bosses vote through dramatic qualifying format overhaul

Formula 1 bosses have voted unanimously to deliver a dramatic overhaul of the qualifying format for the upcoming season.

Following a meeting of the Strategy Group and F1 Commission in Geneva, the format change has been voted through to spice up the show.

Qualifying will remain as a one-hour session, split into three segments, but drivers must be on track throughout each part until they get knocked out.

Details on how the new qualifying format will work exactly have yet to be decided, but the general outline has been agreed.

Q1 will now last 16 minutes and after seven minutes the slowest driver will take no further part in the session.

Every 90 seconds thereafter, the slowest will be knocked out until there are only 15 drivers remaining.

After a short break, Q2 will commence and last 15 minutes with the slowest driver eliminated after six minutes.

As was the case in Q1, the slowest driver at the time will be knocked out at 90-second intervals until eight remain.

Q3 will last 14 minutes and see the process repeated again with the slowest taking no further part after five minutes.

The next five drivers will drop out at 90-second intervals leaving the final two drivers to fight it out for pole in the final 90 seconds.

The change will require ratification by the World Motor Sport Council, which next meets on March 4.

(source: autosport.com)

Vettel and Ferrari stay in front in Barcelona

Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari continued their impressive start to pre-season testing on Tuesday by topping the timesheets for the second successive day in Spain.

Vettel clocked a lap of 1m 22.810s on his first run with Pirelli’s brand-new ultrasoft compound tyres shortly before lunch, and that time held up as the day’s fastest as most runners focused on racking up mileage.

Vettel’s best lap was nearly two seconds quicker than last year’s pole position time in Spain, as well as being 0.715s quicker than Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo could manage on the same rubber.

Sergio Perez was third quickest for Force India after leaping ahead of Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg with an impressive run on the supersoft tyres in the afternoon session, but Rosberg could satisfy himself with being the day’s overwhelming lap leader.

The Silver Arrows pilot circulated an astonishing 172 times in his F1 W07 Hybrid, just a day after team mate Lewis Hamilton had completed 156 laps in the new car’s maiden outing.

Six other drivers made it into triple figures for laps, including Fernando Alonso who racked up more mileage in one day than he had in all of the 2015 pre-season tests as McLaren’s promising start to the new campaign continued.

Elsewhere there was encouragement for Manor as Pascal Wehrlein lapped his MRT05 over five seconds faster than the team managed in qualifying in Spain last year, but disappointment for Jolyon Palmer and Renault as a power unit-related problem curtailed their running.

Palmer brought out the red flag when he coasted to a smoky halt between Turns 2 and 3 in the afternoon - one of three stoppages on the day, the others caused when Max Verstappen parked his Toro Rosso with an electrical issue early in the morning and and then when Vettel stopped his Ferrari five minutes from the chequered flag.

Tuesday's unofficial testing times from Barcelona

POS	Driver	Team/Car	Best lap	Gap	Laps
1	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari SF16-H	1:22.810		126
2	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer RB12	1:23.525	0.715	112
3	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes VJM09	1:23.650	0.840	101
4	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid	1:24.867	2.882	172
5	Marcus Ericcson	Sauber-Ferrari C34	1:25.237	2.427	108
6	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas-Ferrari VF-16	1:25.524	2.714	79
7	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes FW38	1:25.648	2.838	134
8	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor Racing-Mercedes MRT05	1:25.925	3.115	71
9	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Honda MP4-31	1:26.082	3.272	119
10	Jolyon Palmer	Renault R.S.16	1:26.189	3.379	42
11	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR11	1:26.539	3.729	121