Can F1 rule tweak really make qualifying better? Drivers have say

A last-minute Formula 1 rule change has been introduced for qualifying at the Japanese Grand Prix, but will it really make things better?

Before Thursday’s media day got underway at Suzuka, F1’s governing body the FIA announced the amount of permitted energy recharge per lap in Saturday’s qualifying session would be reduced from 9MJ to 8MJ following unanimous agreement from the power unit manufacturers.

The change has been applied to cut the amount of battery harvesting by lifting and coasting drivers will need to do during a fast lap in response to energy-saving fears. It should mean there will be less super clipping, enabling drivers to attack corners in a more normal manner.

Most drivers have welcomed the U-turn from the FIA, though there is skepticism over the impact it will have on improving the enjoyment of qualifying.

Charles Leclerc insisted it wouldn’t be a “game-changer”, while Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton said: “They have changed it coming into the weekend. When we were on the simulator, you were having to do a tonne of lift and coast, which is really, really not enjoyable to do, particularly for a qualifying lap.”

Lando Norris, F1’s reigning world champion, added: "It's different. I need to go out and drive with it first. I think it will eliminate some things and it will shift around some other bits.

“I think the thing is you also have tracks where it will be better. Some tracks it will work and be a much better thing, some tracks it won't change too much. So it should be a little bit better here. It's not like it's going to change the whole world.”

George Russell, who leads the world championship after the opening two rounds also downplayed the effect the rules tweak will have.

"It's just a small detail. It doesn't change anything,” the Mercedes driver stated.

"You can recover less from your battery, so it means you need to be slightly more wise with how you spend it. Hopefully, what it means is we'll be going slightly slower in the middle of the straight, but slightly faster at the end of the straight.

"It's small adjustment. I've yet to sort of see any data of the difference from what I drove on the simulator, so I'm not exactly sure.”

After being the harshest critic of F1’s new cars and regulations, Max Verstappen hopes the change will bring back some level of enjoyment in qualifying.

"I've not practiced it on the simulator so I cannot give you a clear answer,” the four-time world champion admitted. "It was before not flat-put, basically, so I hope this can be closer to flat out.”

Verstappen’s former Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez, now a Cadillac driver, echoed the same sentiment of many of his peers.

“I don’t think it will change dramatically. There is a lot you still need to respect - how we harvest,” the Mexican explained.

“So from what I have understood from the engineers, we don’t expect a huge amount of change, but we will see in qualifying what it brings. But for now, we don’t see it as a massive change.”

‘Just making us even slower’

However, not every driver was positive. Ollie Bearman warned the tweak will “just make us even slower” over a qualifying lap.

"On one hand we don't have to do any lift and coast any more, which is probably a bit better for us… but we still have to recharge the energy and we spend a lot of time just with no energy because we're losing one megajoule compared to what we had on the sim and prior to coming here,” the Haas driver argued.

"I think there's better ways of achieving the same thing. If we could harvest at negative 350 kilowatts while on full throttle, I think it would make everyone's lives a bit easier. But this is also a solution, I guess.”

While Leclerc thinks the move is a step in the right direction, he doubts it will solve F1’s “biggest problem”.

“Whatever solution helps us to push at the maximum those cars, because that’s what I loved, that’s what I love about this sport is when you get to Q3 and you have the maximum pressure on you to deliver at your best at that moment and that you try and do a lap that you haven’t done before,” he added.

“At the moment this is not possible because every time you do something that you haven’t done before then the car is just trying to adapt to it and it makes you lose more than what you gain. I think this is the biggest problem at the moment.

"The solutions are very, very, very complex, but I know that everybody is trying to brainstorm ideas in order to find the best solution and hopefully we come with a good solution very soon.”