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I hope someone can point out the problem that this is the solution for. It's qualifying - it's not the race. It's not meant to be as exciting as the race. It shouldn't be a highlight of the weekend. If promoters have asked for change in order that they can sell more tickets to try and lose only a large sum of money rather than an eye-wateringly vast sum of money then actually £cclestone doesn't really need to look too far in order to find a solution to that one.
But of course this isn't going to improve the trackside event at all unless you happen to have a screen nearby with times on it, so the promoters will have been given change for change's sake.
I think there's lot of poorly thought through elements of this plan. If cars need to be on track throughout then there's no tyre changing so as mentioned by someone above the first couple of laps will set out pretty much how the session will go, removing any semblance of drama we at least had with the previous system.
Yellow flags are very likely to have an influence in several sessions with drivers who slow down to proper safe yellow flag speeds being penalised and as before those who go steaming through the flagged zones are ignored. After Jules's accident I thought they'd clamp down on this but there's been none.
And what if wet weather improves during a session. Are they going to allow a tyre change, or do they expect everyone to cruise around on threadbare rubber.
This change is enough that I probably won't bother with qualifying at all this season. I suppose it's not a "caution clock" but it's not much less contrived.
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