Qualifying Is Broken, Here's How To Fix It.

Since as long as motor sport has been around, Qualifying has been the standard practice in determining grid positions for a race, with the fastest competitor over one lap to be placed at the front and the slowest at the rear. In early days this was to give the fastest car the best advantage of winning as it wasn’t just a race to the finish line, it was also a test of reliability as much of the field would either crash out or retire with mechanical failures. In categories with limited grid capacity’s and a large number of competitors it was also a way of seeing if you were fast enough to even compete in the race. In modern times these factors have not been so prevalent, with most professional Motorsports teams being so professional that mechanical retirements are rare.

So if we haven’t got mechanical dramas like what was common ground how do we change things around to make it more exciting? Now I say exciting because we must remember that sport is entertainment, the drama that you are watching each weekend and reading about in the media would have you think your’e watching a reality TV show, what happens to TV shows when they get boring? They get cut, and watching the same team win with no competition for the top spot can get boring. Fans stop tuning in each weekend and sponsors investment drops, slowly crushing the sport.

But keeping this in mind whilst yes, it is entertainment, it is still a sport, with the best person/team winning on the day, so at the same time yes it should be interesting but we shouldn’t be punishing someone for investing the most time and money to achieve a goal set out in competition.

A common occurrence on the Supercar grid, Shell and Red bull battling for polo position

So what is the solution I propose so we aren’t penalising the best team on the day for no reason but keeping the sport entertaining to keep fans engaged and sponsors investing?

Random grid positions.

Now this has been known as different names eg. Computer grids, but what it means is that instead of using qualifying to determine the grid positions, it should be put up as a random draw, same as what you might see at the Melbourne cup at the barrier draw before the race, taking out any advantage that a certain spot might have over others.

Now before we get into detail we need to first understand what racing is. The winner of a race is the car/driver that can cover the most amount of distance (whether it be in laps or time) in the shortest amount of time, eg. first one to cover 50 laps or first one to cover the most amount of laps in an hour in timed races. Now if a team can prove in qualifying that they can cover 1 lap of a circuit in 1 Minute, and the second driver can cover 1 lap in 1 minute and 1 second we can assume (if the cars are perfect, no driver mistakes with no tyre wear) that the pole position sitter will finish the race in 50 minutes, with second place finishing the race in 50 minutes and 50 seconds, that’s nearly 1 lap slower than the lead driver at race finish.

Now changes to the grid have been done many times before like reverse grids, where they might reverse the top ten drivers (like they do in our category the Aussie Racing Cars) or even the whole field, but you’ll usually find that its the quickest drivers barreling through the field until the results look similar to the qualifying results.

So how would random grids help?

Assuming that we are in a perfect world with cars and limited errors we have many different potentials that could happen, we could see the slower drivers up the front and fastest at the rear, or fastest up the front and slower to the rear, or all the fast drivers scattered through the field, meaning we will see drivers battling their hardest to catch his rival at the front, meaning more passing, more action and more drama. This could also be applied in many different matters, like only random grid the top ten/fifteen cars, similar to qualifying before a top ten shootout.

Imagine as a fan tuning in every week, knowing that anyone has an equal shot of winning on a weekend, and not only that the amount of drama through out the field. Just imagine the action if the championship leader drew a spot 10 positions behind the driver that’s second in the championship, but 3rd in the championship draws along side the championship leader, everyone has an opportunity to take out the championship, but also loose it, and mix everyone in between and we have more chance for human error for entertainment value.

Without people watching the sport, we don’t have a sport worth funding.

This also has the benefit to teams that might run in the back half most weekend’s, giving them more incentive and chance to win, meaning more time on TV, more fan following and more potential for sponsors to sponsor other teams on the grid beside the front runners.

Race Karts in Australia and you”ll find this common place at most Karting events, making members happier to have the chance to tussle with the guys up the front for a potential win under their belt.

In my eyes especially, this will give incentive for people to tune in knowing anyone could win on the day without penalising the quicker teams as every team would be hoping for the best luck possible.

-Cody