Perhaps it is time to have a look at our obsession with qualifying? Naturally, a purist will scoff at the mere suggestion that qualifying is bad for the "show", but let us consider what qualifying gives us on an average Sunday.
It doesn't take a mental giant to figure out that when we put the fastest cars at the front of the field, and we don't allow any setup changes after qualifying, we aren't typically setting the stage for a thrilling race rife with overtaking. In Malaysia, most of the drama was provided by the McLarens and Ferraris weaving their way through the field (quite literally in Hamilton's case).
It was a fun race to watch, but the top 3 starters were also the top 3 finishers, they just jostled each other around a bit on the run down to the first corner. Take out the dramatics provided by Button, Hamilton, Massa, and the sublimely ridiculous "we don't need no stinking clutch" Alonso, and we might all be grousing about yet another Bahrain-esque snoozefest.
Furthermore, take out the rain from the equation on Saturday and even a fool will tell you that we wouldn't have 4 very fast cars and drivers slicing through the field to provide us with excitement. So here we are, understanding that rain on Saturday gave us a mixed grid, and a mixed grid gave us an exciting race. What we have, then, is an uncomfortable syllogism: dry qualifying leads to boring races.
Beyond that, it is not so simple; there are many facets to consider beyond the purist gripe of, "but they have been doing it this way for 60 years". Probably the concern which would be given the most weight would be Bernie's need to attract fans and viewers on Saturday. But I say, you still have cars and drivers which are described as fastest and best, respectively. And furthermore, the rules for this year have proven that the FIA are not opposed to really tweaking the points on offer.
Why, then, could we not have a 30 minute sprint race on Saturday? The FOM could package it into a nice one hour segment with 15 minutes of pre-race and 15 minute of post.
And before you say, "Surely the cars are on the ragged edge of holding together for a GP distance already, they can't be expected to last through a sprint race and then a full race on Sunday!", let me first say: don't call me Shirley. In Malaysia, all of the Q3 runners did at least 18 laps. On the dry race day, the lap times were around about 100 seconds. A 30 minute race has 1,800 seconds. (Maybe you see where I am going with this) An F1 car doing 100 second laps can do approximately 18 laps in 30 minutes! Therefore, if we canned qualifying in favor of a 30 minute sprint race, the cars would end up doing about the same mileage over the course of the weekend.
Then there is still the issue of sorting out the grid for Sunday and, indeed, for Saturday in my example. There are a bevy of possibilities. From reversing previous race finishes, to reversing top the 10, to a random lottery, to reversed championship positions, there are a whole host of possibilities.
But I leave it to you - Patty Faithful - if you were El Presidente Jean Todt for a day (and we assumed that the FIA ever got anything done in just one day), what would you do? Is qualifying to the detriment of "the show"? How would you improve it? And, while we're at it, if you had free reign to sculpt the rules, what would you introduce/ban?
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My personal preference, like The Spleen and indeed The Foot in his Formula Patty article (http://www.patronisef1.com/ind...mula-patty) remains turning Q3 into a superpole shootout. THe drivers will push 100% because the worst case scenario is only 10th rather than last under the old one-lap qualifying system, you get to see every lap so you can accurately say why one driver or another ended up out of position, and there's the chance of a few drivers mucking up and ending up giving us some passing action on Sunday.
Also, I've been thinking that, now we don't have silly race fuel in quali any more, bringing back a Sunday morning warmup might be good. Give some drivers who struggled in quali the chance to get a decent race setup so they are then a bit faster than the guys ahead of him. The double problem we (usually) have now is that we get the cars in speed order from fastest to slowest, and then don't give anyone the chance to move their car up the pace order between quali and the race.
Still, the sprint race is an interesting idea at least.
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