Without meaning to sound too old, there was a time not so long ago when TV coverage of sporting events was more than a little ramshackle. And I don't just mean last year when ITV had the F1 coverage. Back at the start of the F1 world championship, the coverage of the inaugural race was little more than a few dodgily edited shots from one or two corners of Silverstone, released some days after the race took place. It wasn't until the climactic end to the 1976 world championship that regular highlights were offered on the same day as the race took place, and even as recently as 1996, qualifying sessions were largely overlooked by mainstream TV broadcasters. Which means you, BBC.
And yet now, with our blanket footage, in-car cameras, interactive viewing options and live coverage of every second of every session at every weekend, we are living in an age of glorified riches. From the meagre scraps of coverage we put up with even 15 years ago, we now gorge ourselves on an orgy of F1 action. In fact, if you press the "6" button on your remote control when you're in the BBC "red button" menu during a race, you get to visit a virtual vomitorium, where you can barf out some of the visual images you've already lapped up to make room in your belly for the remaining laps of the grand prix. Possibly.
But sometimes, even with the hundreds of cameras and thousands of hours of footage at our disposal, things get missed. Never more so than during the dreadful closing stages of the qualifying session in Hungary three weeks ago, when a ghost in the timing machine meant that the final few minutes of the session played out in deliciously farcical circumstances, with the TV director reduced to cutting randomly to cars that looked like they might be going a bit faster than the others, and all the drivers having to compare lap times with each other in parc ferme like a bunch of thick chavs sat in Ibiza airport loudly and oafishly comparing how many times they got lucky during their two week jolly.
And in the end, we completely missed the pole lap. How did Fernando Alonso end up on pole position? Well, for a start, he took most of the fuel out of his car, but aside from that there was no real clue as to how his lap went, whether it was especially good or neat, or anything. Almost like the winning goal in a cup semi-final being scored while the cameras are focused on one of the managers on the touchline rabidly chewing gum and shouting, we were left with the distinct feeling that despite all the cameras, we'd somehow missed the main event. You know, something like this.
Which brings me, in a horribly contrived sort of way, to the focus of this article. In the last few years, F1 has experimented with a whole array of qualifying formats, after it was decided that simply allowing everyone an hour to set as quick a lap as possible simply wasn't entertaining enough. Which to be fair, was often a valid criticism, given that the first half of the session often saw everyone sitting around in the pits, waiting for someone to blink first, while Murray Walker wittered on into ever more insane segues. Plus, missing the pole lap in that system was even more of a possibility than it is now, given the traffic that would flood onto track right at the end of the hour.
From there, then, the FIA took the sort of measured and considered approach to the issue that they are famous for, and threw disparate and often stupid ideas at the problem until they finally stumbled across something everyone was relatively happy with. From the one hour, 12 laps per driver system to today's three-part knockout method, we travelled via a Friday qualifying session, a Sunday qualifying session, aggregate times, fuel burning phases and lots of other frippery that seemed less and less like a good idea the more you thought about it. But looking back on it, the one good idea that the powers that be managed to come up with was the single lap session.
Think about it. You got to see every moment of every lap for every driver. Not only did you know how and why Driver A was on pole position, but you knew how and why Driver Q was in 17th as well. The whole baffling way that an F1 grid comes to be formed was stripped down and distilled into a wonderful hour of simplicity.
To clarify here, given the number of different qualifying systems we were "blessed" with in the mid-2000s, this isn't referring to the one where the drivers did a lap on Friday to determine their order ion Saturday, or the one where the grid was ludicrously decided on Sunday morning when a second, untelevised session was aggregated with Saturday's times, but the plain, simple, one-lap-per-driver method. That, from a viewer entertainment perspective at least, was as close to the ideal qualifying rules we've ever had.
Of course, it was in no way perfect, after all, absolutely nothing ever is. For example, apparently Brad Pitt is a real bastard for not filling the dishwasher up completely before running the programme. And in the case of single-lap qualifying, the drawbacks were obvious. Should the weather intervene at some point during the session, some drivers would be left hopelessly out of position through literally no fault of their own. But then, the possibility of the weather spoiling the grid positions of some of the fancied drivers is a possibility no matter what system you use. Remember the way the Italian grid ended up last year, for example. And on the main occasion where the weather stepped in to turn the single-lap qualifying session into a farce, at the 2005 Japanese Grand Prix, we were treated to one of the greatest races of modern times. The weather didn't intervene often, but when it did, it added some welcome extra spice to the occasion.
Another issue was the fact that, although the entertainment was constant in the hour-long(ish) session, before the big guns came out to play, you had to sit through each of the laps from the various backmarkers, which was a bit of a drag for most, but hey, they have fans too. Even Zsolt Baumgartner. So why shouldn't they be allowed to see their favourites attack their qualifying lap? If it really bored you that much, you could have gone and made a cup of tea or something. Just chill out, man.
As an added benefit, the pressure of the single lap stuff helped to shuffle the grid on a regular basis. In the 13 events it lasted for, we had 8 different pole sitters from 6 different teams. Williams took a 1-3 on the grid for the system's debut at the Nurburgring, and even Michael Schumacher managed to overcome the chronic lameness of the 2005 Ferrari to secure top spot in Hungary. And should anyone have gasped "How the hell did he get on pole?" you could of course answer knowingly, having seen every lap.
So, single lap qualifying. Not as bad as all that. And although it looks unlikely that it will ever return, there is certainly an argument for adjusting the current system to allow for a single lap "superpole" session for Q3, where the top ten take it in turns to set their flying lap. That way we could easily avoid any more missed pole laps, and everyone would be happy. Well, I'd be happy, and that's what's important.
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The current format is fun to watch, its exciting and if they throw out the race-fuel load in Q3 it will be a big improvement. This way, virtually anyone capable of getting into Q3 can get a pole by going lightest.
As for the argument about not getting to see how the pole position is achieved you can simply go here and watch it for yourself...
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HOW MUCH
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Good points gabal, but ...
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