Ralf unsure about F1 quali

By Karl King
October 2 2005

Ralf Schumacher has told that he is unsure on which path Formula One should take for qualifying in 2006. One lap qualifying has not been a big hit with spectators and viewers alike - and it's not much to write about for publishers and journalists either!

Aggregate timing has proved a definate no-no, with the sport ditching that after only half a season.

Fans have been expressing their desire to return to qualifying from the past but the options released for 2006 by the teams have looked more exciting with the knock out session looking the more popular, with the 5 slowest being knocked out after 15 minutes, the next 5 slowest being knocked out after 15 and then a show down between the final ten in the last 15 minutes for pole with as little fuel as you like.

We're confused about what we want, and so is Ralf: "On one hand it's quite good to qualify on your own when you can't have any traffic, although I still managed to have some here in Hungary!"

David Coulthard was still on his inlap, travelling very slowly to preserve his Michelins and Cossie engine, as Schumacher completed his hotlap, however the Brit made a visit to Ralf to apologise.

"On the other hand, four chances on low fuel was quite a good system as well, and everyone knew who had the quickest package. But I'm not sure about having to do a lap every 15 minutes, as has been suggested."

A return to the old system could see slower cars ruining a good lap by the specialists.

When asked if he agreed with Michael on the fact that Quali has been changed too much, Ralf replied "I don't know. Under the old system people complained that only the last 20 minutes mattered, during which there was too much traffic. But rather than complaining, we need a better solution and, personally, I don't have one. Whatever they were trying to do was for the good of the sport. It hasn't worked out perfectly yet. With single-lap qualifying spectators can at least follow every car but the main problem on the outside is that they don't understand the different fuel loads and so on. They don't see the technical side of it and I think many of them just want to see a lot of cars running and things happening."

And a very reserved final word "I guess you will never satisfy everyone because even among the team principals everyone has their own opinion and their own suggestions."