Category Archives: Grand Prix News

Bernie Ecclestone has wasted little time in sending a reply to the GPDA after the drivers’ organisation yesterday wrote an open letter demanding change to the governance system that runs F1.

The GPDA letter, signed by Jenson Button, Sebastian Vettel and chairman Alex Wurz, said that the “decision-making process in the sport is obsolete and ill-structured.”

Ecclestone began his own letter with “Dear Gentlemen,” before making clear that he was in a mischievous mood by adding, “I’m not sure this is the right description.”

He then wrote: “It is not always easy to agree with you but you are correct. We must, as you have stated, urge the owners and all stakeholders of F1 to consider restructuring its governance.

“It is easy to analyse what is wrong, so why not think and come back on this. At least it is better to think before you wish.”

A revamped form of the elimination qualifying format could yet be used for the Bahrain GP weekend, despite the teams voting to abandon the new system.

After the disaster of Australian GP a meeting of teams was held in Melbourne on Sunday morning, hosted by the FIA’s Charlie Whiting. It was unanimously agreed to drop the new system and revert to what was used in 2015 for Bahrain. Bernie Ecclestone was not in Australia, but backed the change, having always maintained that he didn’t like elimination.

However, at the start of the meeting both Force India and Williams had initially indicated that they would like to keep Q1 and Q2 in an elimination format, with Q3 as a ‘standard’ session with all cars in a position to run all the way through.

This idea was first suggested several weeks ago after the team managers and engineers had first had a proper chance to study the idea that the F1 Strategy Group had suggested.

Sources indicate that Jean Todt was not willing to accept this compromise and make a change to the plan that had come from the Strategy Group, and which then had to be voted on by the F1 Commission and World Motor Sport Council.

Ironically it appears that after the teams agreed to dump it completely Todt now supports the Williams/Force India route, and wants to have the hybrid system, rather than go back to 2015 style qualifying.

Any change at this stage has to be agreed unanimously by the Strategy Group (six top teams plus Todt and Ecclestone), then the F1 Commission (as before plus the rest of the teams, Pirelli and promoters) and finally by the World Motor Sport Council.

It would appear that Todt is hoping to force the compromise solution through in order to save at least some of the elimination format, with some tweaks to the timing of the sessions built-in as well.

Force India deputy team principal Bob Fernley suggested that the Sunday vote to drop the new format completely was an overreaction.

“Obviously it’s something of a knee-jerk reaction in some ways,” he told this writer. “I think we should have let the weekend go through and evaluate it. It was the whole purpose of what the changes were made for, it was about trying not only to spice up qualifying a little bit, which it certainly did in Q1 and Q2, but also from the point of view of what it was going to do in the race with the tyres and so on.

“Clearly Q3 didn’t quite tick all the boxes and needed to be looked at, but that was one element of it. I think we should have waited. A lot of thought had gone into it in the first place, and just to throw it out without following the whole process seemed to me just too hasty.”

F1 team principals are set to meet in the Melbourne paddock on Sunday to discuss how to address the issue of qualifying after the new system made a disastrous debut.

Although he is back in Europe Bernie Ecclestone has organised the meeting, having called the bosses in the last few hours to canvas their opinions.

The intention is to come to a unanimous agreement and present a letter to the FIA outlining their views on what can be changed in time for the Bahrain GP. The rules can be changed quickly if all parties agree, although the process will clearly have to be fast tracked through.

The two possible scenarios are either a return to the previous qualifying system or a package of revisions to the elimination system which will most likely involve Q3 running to the old rules, which will ensure that cars are running at the end of the session.

“I think firstly we should apologise to the fans and the viewers because that’s not what qualifying should be,” said Christian Horner. “It should crescendo into something. The intentions were well meaning but we have to accept that it hasn’t worked, we got it wrong, and we should address it very quickly. My personal view is that we should go back to what we had in time for the next race, because what we saw today is not good for F1.

“I didn’t like the fact that the fast cars didn’t have a right to reply. You’ve got Ferraris sitting in the garage because there’s no point in them running again. Qualifying should build up to a crescendo, and everybody bolts their last set of tyres in the last couple of minutes, and you see what you’ve got.”