Charles Leclerc has questioned F1’s latest attempt to spice up qualifying although recognises “it’s part of the game”.
F1 is running the ‘alternative tyre allocation’ trial for this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix whereby during each session of qualifying only one compound can be used.
For Q1, the hard tyres – rarely seen in qualifying – will be run, followed by the mediums for Q2, and then softs for Q3.
Teams also only have 11 sets of tyres across a weekend rather than 13, aiding the push for sustainability, but also complicating a race weekend, according to Ferrari driver Leclerc.
“It is going to be very tricky because the free practice preparations will be quite mixed,” said Leclerc.
“I feel like we are going to see many different programmes in practice along the grid because there are so many different options you can choose now with this new format.
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“We’ll see. It can be an opportunity. If you take the wrong decisions your weekend can go a bad way, but it’s part of the game.
“I think Q1 and Q2 will be tricky with the different compounds. It’s something that we are not really used to, pushing on a hard tyre in a qualifying mode, so that will be quite new for everyone, and this might be a surprise for a few people.”
Suggested to Leclerc that an extra degree of jeopardy was good for F1, he replied: “No, I don’t think so. I don’t think jeopardy should be a part of the sport. The best one should win.
“It might be a bit of an unknown for now. The more we do this format, the more people will know what to expect and the more things will come back to the right order.”
As to whether the overall concept was one he approved of, Leclerc remarked: “To be honest, I don’t want to comment too much because I don’t know what to expect.
“Maybe after qualifying, we’ll know more about it but it’s going to be very tricky with the amount of tyres we have.
“You obviously need to run those tyres at one point, maybe during free practice, or not, by choice.
“But this is why it makes things very unpredictable for now.”
With first practice at the Hungaroring hit by rain, that at least played into the hands of the teams and drivers as sets of dry tyres will have been saved.
The format is due to run again over the Italian GP weekend, after which a decision will be made on whether to adopt it on a permanent basis for next season.
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