This is what action the FIA has decided to take.

Quote :

FIA are to set maximum lap time limits prior to next weekend's Bahrain GP following chaotic scenes during qualifying in Malaysia.

The problems arose in the dying seconds of Q3 when the majority of drivers were trundling back to the pits in an effort to save fuel having completed their final flying lap.
Some were so slow that the official F1 timing screen read 'stop' creating a dangerous situation with other cars that were still trying to complete their flying lap,
Drivers had to fight their way through the traffic narrowly avoiding slow moving cars, some of whom were in the middle of the racing line.

Debacle

The debacle resulted in both McLaren drivers being penalised for holding up Nick Heidfeld and prompted calls for qualifying to be changed before there was an accident.
The FIA are expected to announce new rules within the next few days with time limits imposed, likely to be 120 percent of a normal lap time, to stop drivers returning to the pits too slowly.
A FIA spokesman said: "The matter is under discussion and our clarification to the teams and drivers will be that cars returning to the pits having completed their flying lap or laps will be required to do so within a time that we will set.
"This could be approximately 120% of the 'normal' time as we do to prevent drivers going very slowly to the grid to save fuel."

And damn right they should, i have to say in no case is it ever smart to drive on the racing line going slow let alone so slow that one of the smartest peices of technology reads "Stopped"

I reckon if an F1 team is so good it should matter how much fuel they have at a start of a race they make it work for them, if they have enough money to field 2 F1 cars they have enough money to be smart.

I got an idea, how about they just forget the park firme bull crap! I wanna see people battling for Pole running on fumes not with race fuel! Stupid rule causing stupid issues like that.

Quote from BenjiMC :

I got an idea, how about they just forget the park firme bull crap! I wanna see people battling for Pole running on fumes not with race fuel! Stupid rule causing stupid issues like that.

Actually, i have to disagree Ben. Consider Monaco, Hungary and other impossible to pass tracks:

It could definately be worth significantly altering your pit strategy (BMW) to go out on light fuel and go for pole. Get your cars out front, and get a quick lead in a short first stint. Cars behind you (McLaren/Ferrari) will be quagmired in battles for position and naturally fall back.

The Potential is there for someone other than Ferrari/McLaren to set the pole every race, which instantly makes it more interesting from a strategy perspective.

I'm surprised no-one's really experimented with this yet, but look for some interesting stuff a little later on in the season.

Okay, let's take a fairly typical F1 laptime, of 90 seconds. Let's say that lap was completed at 150mph average speed, just for the sake of argument (giving a 3.7mi lap... I know that's over the top).

At 120% of that laptime, you get 108 seconds - 18 seconds slower than a fast lap. Now, considering the slower cars on the grid (usually only 3-4 seconds off the pace) often cause problems for faster cars, how is 120% even remotely useful? 120% brings your average speed down to ~123mph, which is a drop in average speed of 27mph.

27mph slower or 18 seconds longer on a single lap? I can see that increases safety a bit - but that's still really dangerous. How about 105%, or some altogether more intelligent figure?

107% is whats been used in the past. And that's generally like 4 seconds off the pace.

Still could be a huge slow up.

I say leave the rules how they are and give huge pentalties for blocking the line as the McLarens did.

This qualifying session is soon going to require its own rule book.

It doesn't solve the issue, you've still got cars going as slowly as they can to save fuel (particuarly in the fast bits) and still the potential for a very nasty accident. If they just returned it to a straight qualifying session you'd get none of these issues.

Quote from BenjiMC :

I wanna see people battling for Pole running on fumes not with race fuel! Stupid rule causing stupid issues like that.

I agree.

But i'd make it so the teams had to state a fuel load they'll start the race with before the start of Q3.

Plus have a maximum lap time for in/out laps of max 107%

Although the Parc Ferme rule is a good one as it cut's down the possibility of cheating/changing setups etc

Quote from ajp71 :

If they just returned it to a straight qualifying session you'd get none of these issues.

That would be ideal but... at least I would still prefer this. Especially last year the Q3 was usually more interesting than the actual race (which kind of speaks for itself about modern F1...).

There is one sure way of making the cars return to pit quickly.

Add the return lap time to their fast lap time to get the total qualifying time. Better yet. The qualifying time would be a combination of the three laps. First the lap when you come out of the pits. Then the actual qualifying lap. And then the return to pits lap.
All these would be timed and added together. That would be your qualifying time.

Besides everybody would have a clear track and there would be a car on the track for the whole duration of the qualifying.

Quote from ajp71 :

If they just returned it to a straight qualifying session you'd get none of these issues.

+1 The old method was way better. A one hour session where all the drivers came out on the track to get the fastest lap possible. I'll never know why they changed it ?

Quote from anttt69 :

+1 The old method was way better. A one hour session where all the drivers came out on the track to get the fastest lap possible. I'll never know why they changed it ?

Because the people who make the choices inside F1 don't understand the phrase "If its not broken, don't fix it."

The 1 hour sessions often had 15 minutes of chatter because nobody was on track. I like the knockouts but i don't like the high fuel qualifying in Q3. it should be like Q2

I'd like to see the first two knock-out rounds continue, then the final ten drivers do a 1 hot lap superpole type affair.

Low fuel, single lap qual to sort the men from the boys.

I don't want to see the fastest car/driver romp off into the distance with the perfect fuel strategy to boot. F1 is predictable enough anyway.
I admit it's a shame we never ever get to see how fast they genuinely could do a lap (q2 isn't this because they just want to make the cut, not set fastest time), but I think it's good that things get "mixed up" a bit.

TBH this rule of qually wqith fuel was used for the days when ferrari or renault would dominate, but i think now that McLaren and Ferrari are on pretty much equal terms it's not really needed. I'd rather see them properly push for pole than just slap 10 kg less fuel in than everyone else and cruise to pole.

Quote from The Moose :

I'd like to see the first two knock-out rounds continue, then the final ten drivers do a 1 hot lap superpole type affair.

Low fuel, single lap qual to sort the men from the boys.

It should be this... but with a twist.

The top 10 have a one lap shootout - but the shoot out is one lap with their race fuel on board.

The drivers have there race fuel added and then they park at the END of the pit lane in reverse top 10 from Q2 order.

They turn their engines off and wait there with a team of 6 mechanics (4 with tyre warmers) one with a rear jack and one with a starter motor.

When its their turn they go out.... like when they use to do the single lap quali a few years ago (but this time its only the top 10, but with race fuel onboard) that can not be altered after the start of the final session.

What if all cars just had to start the race with certain amount of fuel onboard? Not some rigid one number, more like a small range like 100-130 litres so you wouldn't have problems with pitstops (enough gap to make every teams' cars to pit on different laps and probably enough gap to prevent too many drivers going to the pits at the same time.

Quote from Hyperactive :

What if all cars just had to start the race with certain amount of fuel onboard? Not some rigid one number, more like a small range like 100-130 litres so you wouldn't have problems with pitstops (enough gap to make every teams' cars to pit on different laps and probably enough gap to prevent too many drivers going to the pits at the same time.

isn't that just like saying - ok we will shorten the race by 20 laps?

Should just penalize the teams if they run above a certian ammount of fuel in Q3.
And the cars out of say the top 8 have a restricted ammount of fuel that can be added after Q3. But the fast laps have to be within like the same ammount Q2 was or else they have a penilty of some form.

Lol strange idea ey.