Fernando Alonso has suggested a change to the F1 qualifying format to prevent traffic from becoming an issue.
This weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix is being held at the Red Bull Ring, one of the shortest circuits on the F1 calendar.
Max Verstappen took pole for last year’s event with a 1:04.984s, with times expected to be south of that this weekend.
With 20 cars on track in the opening phase of the current three-part qualifying session, and a high-speed conclusion to the lap in Speilberg, there are concerns that traffic will play a factor and could become a safety issue, too.
That has prompted Alonso to call for a return to single-lap qualifying.
“It is a topic every weekend and especially in short circuits,” the two-time world champion said of managing traffic during qualifying.
“There are a few options to improve this.
“One is a single-lap qualifying, like in the past.
“That will be ideal, in my opinion, because only one car on track and full TV coverage for that lap for everyone, sponsors and things like that.
“That created a little bit of drama in case of weather change in between qualifiers – you could see in pole position different cars, different names.
“So that was, I think, my preferred option.”
The Spaniard also suggested that another option would be to split the field in the early minutes, like with Formula 2 and Formula 3 in Monaco.
That proposal has support from Carlos Sainz, who suggests the three-part format could otherwise run as-is.
“I think the shorter-term solution would be to at least do Q1 on our split, 10 car, one from each team, qualifying group,” he ventured.
“Then I think, by Q2, the traffic already improved quite a bit; Q3 is not a problem.”
It’s a change he suggests would only be made for short tracks, such as the Red Bull Ring, with a short time window of eight minutes for each group.
However, he also believes Alonso’s suggestion has merit and could be used on Sprint weekends, where there are now two qualifying sessions.
Valtteri Bottas has touted such a concept as the sport looks for ways to further improve the show at Sprint events.
“I do like that feeling of suddenly having the whole track for you and having the pressure to perform only in one lap,” Sainz said.
“I think that would be really good fun for us, I think for our sponsors, and for everyone.
“Maybe for the TV would be boring for you but I don’t know, depends on the technology.
“If you could put a ghost car of the fastest lap, I think with the technology that we have nowadays, something like that could be achievable.
“With the many sectors with the ghost cars with the with that kind of stuff that I think we should look into.”
Not everyone is in favour of that idea, though, with Verstappen reasoning traffic is simply part and parcel of modern F1.
“It’s quite cool, but again, there’s also track evolution,” he said of the single-lap concept.
“So, not sure it’s the best idea.
“Yeah, there’s always traffic but this has been… you just have to try and manage it.”
Currently, drivers rely on a combination of their mirrors and radio calls from the engineer to advise on cars approaching that are on a fast lap.
It’s an imperfect system, with Sainz one of those picking up a penalty in Canada for impeding – in that instance, Pierre Gasly.
The impact there compromised the Frenchman’s weekend, highlighting the importance of not baulking others and getting a clean run.
However, for all the suggestions for revised formats, George Russell proposed a simple solution: empower the drivers.
“Traffic is sometimes bad at certain tracks,” he conceded.
“I think the only suggestion we had in the past was to have, like, your GPS delta on the dash, so you’re not relying on your engineers.
“When you’re going slow, the cars come at you so quick and we’re always relying on our engineers to tell us.
“Put it in our hands to manage and not somebody else’s.”
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