Well, i don't think that 15min is "too little" time for a qualify.
And it's not just my opinion.
Most leagues use 10-15min qualifys nowadays.
Some use 20min but the majority uses 15min.
You can check on that. It's the norm.
15min is more than enough.
Even in the real world, you could see Formula One for instance;
The really "valid" laps are made at Q3 and usually are one, or two at the most, laps.
Which don't take even 5 minutes.
I think that a serious championship really can't do without a proper qualify.
A small, small draft on the straight can gain you anything from .3 to .5s. And the guy can spend the whole day trying to make that "perfect" lap.
It's not really sporty, i guess. And that's taking "shortcuts" out of the way.
One should be able, it's a measure of skill too, to do a fast lap "on the go" (15min is enough for at least 6 *good* laps, having 2 stints of 4 laps, one outlap on each and then 3 valid laps) and that's a really important part of motorracing. I think you guys agree with that.
If it's not possible to have a qualify cause it would take time and thus cost (the TV thing) money there are some other ways to do it.
There could be another date (one day before? or really anytime prior the race) to have a qualify, not on the race day.
If everyone has time to practice (this is a "high level" championship, right? so people do practice for it) and run on the event server too to set their laps on the lapper, surely they could do that same thing, for 15min, on a pre-determined day.
One could even arrange (if it's hard to coordinate a day/time for everyone - but the same happens with the *race*, remember) more than one ocassion to qualify.
Say 1 to 3 qualify sessions. Each one with 15min. On different days/time.
One could join any of these (one time) and qualify himself for the race.
I must be sounding like a broken record and maybe being too insistent on this matter but that's because i really can't fathom a serious event having it's start grid determined by a lapper. The motives for that lack of fairness are descripted on my earlier post. I just can't.
If nothing else, it should be arranged by hotlap then, not lapper.
It's a lot more fair and it is pretty much the same as the lapper, one can do his lap at anytime (and consuming any given ammount of time too for that) and then just upload it on the site.
I must insist on a serious "look" at this matter.
I just think it's a really serious issue. That's all.
A lack of proper qualify (remember, if not possible, at least let's have some hotlaps defining it) would take away a lot of the fairness of the championship, even some good deal of "emotion" and "fighting" from it too.
Hope i made my "point" clear.
Cheers from Brasil.