After eight seasons, Formula 1 has again made some changes to the format of the qualifying sessions. In 2022 there there is a significant rule change, which will not directly impact on the order of the starting grid, but on the tires that the drivers will use in the first stint of the race. In fact, the rule that on Sunday required the top ten drivers to start the Grand Prix with the set of tires which had been run the previous day in the Q2 session has been abolished.
The decision was made in the last meeting of the Strategy Group and was followed by a meeting of the F1 Commission: it will enter the new sporting regulations for the 2022 Formula 1 season.
After being introduced in 2014, the rule that imposed the constraint of the tires used in Q2 at the start of the race has over the years become a tool to grant a further advantage to the best performing single-seaters.
Show your support for Scuderia Ferrari with official merchandise collection from Puma!
There were actually different strategies at the start of the race, but usually the top teams have always been aligned in their choices. In addition, the old rule has often penalized those drivers who managed to enter Q3 by using soft tires, because they would then find themselves starting the Grand Prix from the fourth or fifth row with a soft compound, while behind them the drivers who had failed in qualifying to enter the top-10 could start with medium or hard tires, putting themselves in a better position on the strategic front.
The curiosity will be to verify if thanks to the new regulation we will see different strategies or not. In the first races we could actually see different options, given the fact that teams will not yet have a thorough knowledge of the new generation of 18-inch Pirelli tires, but in the future the know-how could converge in one direction, and we could once again see races without differences on the strategic front.
Leave a Reply