New F1 qualifying format: How second trial will attempt to cut down tyre usage

F1 will give a second trial to ‘Alternative Tyre Allocation’ qualifying at the Italian Grand Prix; drivers and teams will have mandatory tyre compounds to use in Q1, Q2 and Q3, as opposed to having a free choice if Saturday’s qualifying is dry

A new F1 qualifying format is returning for its second trial at this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix. Here Sky Sports F1 explains the reasons behind it and how it will work.

What’s changed?

Rather than teams and drivers having a free tyre choice in Saturday’s hour-long session, there will instead be mandatory tyres set for each segment of qualifying.

Providing that track is dry for the session:

In Q1 only the hard tyre will be available.

In Q2 only the medium tyre will be available.

In Q3 only the soft tyre will be available.

If a wet session is declared then the drivers and teams will have a free choice of tyre.

Why have the changes been made?

The intention of the ‘Alternative Tyre Allocation’ trial is to see if fewer tyres can be taken to Grand Prix weekends.

Under the trial, the number of dry tyre sets available to each car for the weekend is reduced from 13 to 11.

This amounts to 40 sets – or 160 tyres – being saved over the course of the weekend. If this was implemented at all 23 races this season, it would save 3,680 tyres.

Each driver will have three sets of hard tyres, four sets of medium tyres and four sets of soft tyres available to them over the weekend.

This represents an extra set of hard and medium tyres but a reduction by four sets of soft tyres.

As was the case at the previous trial in Hungary, Pirelli have selected their softest available tyres – the C3, C4 and C5 – which should help reduce any difficulty warming up the harder compounds.

The number of intermediate and wet tyres available to drivers over the weekend remains unchanged at four and three sets respectively.

Was the first trial of the format successful?

The Emilia Romagna GP in May was meant to be the first of two trial runs for the new format, but the event was called off before a car was able to take to the track because of flooding in northern Italy.

Therefore the first trial took place at the Hungarian Grand Prix in July, when there were undoubtedly some teething issues.

The main problem was that teams still want to ensure they can take their usual seven sets of new tyres into qualifying and the race, which leaves them just four sets of tyres to use across the weekend’s three practice sessions.

While the timesheet in practice sessions isn’t always totally…