Indianapolis 500 qualifying will become redundant and less risky as IndyCar announces changes to the qualifying format for the premier event on the schedule.
Here are the changes at a glance:
Saturday:
Field Will Be Filled.
Teams no longer forced to withdraw their qualifying time if they want to make another attempt.
Qualifying goes from 11 a.m. to 5:50 p.m. ET.
Sunday:
Positions 10th-33rd will re-qualify in reverse order and set rows 4-11. They will get one attempt and the session will last from 10:15 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. ET.
The Fast Nine Shootout will take place from 2 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. ET. Each team will get one attempt with the fastest aggregate winning pole and setting the first three rows.
Point incentives for Saturday and Sunday will be announced at a later date.
These changes are painful to me. Do people really want to watch cars qualify and then qualify again the next day?
Is the glory of a television ratings bump really worth it? It feels like selling your soul to the devil.
I have stood by it from the beginning, if IndyCar wants to improve Indianapolis 500 qualifying, make sure there is bumping. Do whatever it takes to encourage more teams to take a crack at making the Indianapolis 500. I have been for allowing teams to run the previous Dallara chassis and previous Honda engine if they would like to qualify for the race. If you allow more equipment to be used to make an attempt, then you open the door to many more opportunities that aren't possible today with the limited amount of DW12 chassis and difficult engine leasing rules from Chevrolet and Honda.
The format has it's flaws.
What if it rains Saturday? Would Sunday revert to a six hour session for pole and to fill the field?
Will the restrictions on your TV window on Sunday make it a session where everyone gets one attempt for pole and at 3 p.m. the field is set?
What if qualifying gets in on Saturday and it rains Sunday? Are you just not going to run the second session and have the times from Saturday set the starting grid?
What if the field isn't filled come 6 p.m. on Sunday?
The format discourages one-offs. The days of a team getting their top cars into the field and then running an additional car are over. Now, once a team knows they have their top cars in the field, it is too late for an additional entry because the field will be set. Under this format, Katherine Legge wouldn't have gotten the opportunity to qualify for Sam Schmidt and Michel Jourdain, Jr. would have gotten into the field, over 5 MPH off of Buddy Lazier in 32nd.
The series has become too enamored with just filling the field that it has lost it's drive to encourage more participated of giving the Indianapolis 500 a shot. Filling the field has become an agonizing task of hyperventilation and frustration that you wonder why the series makes it so hard on themselves and the fans? Open up the rule books a little and let's see what happens. It wouldn't be the end of the world if three or four Dallara IR03/05s make the field while three or four DW12s went home. That's how the Indianapolis 500 was for a long time.
IndyCar needs Occam's Razor. Maybe the best thing for IndyCar is doing what is simple and maybe that's not changing the format but going back to a day when the doors were more open.
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