Pirelli repeats experiment at Monza: this is what happens during qualifying

At the Italian Grand Prix next weekend, a qualifying format already tried in Hungary will be retested. For Monza, it will again impose which compound tyres from Pirelli can be used for each segment of qualifying. These are the rules for Saturday:

Formula 1 organisers believe it is important for the sport to become more sustainable. Further limiting the number of sets of tyres to be used during a weekend is one measure to ensure this. In a regular weekend, drivers have 13 sets of tyres at their disposal, at Monza it will be 11: three sets of hard tyres, four sets of mediums and four sets of softs.

In a regular qualifying session, teams have the option to decide which compound from Pirelli they want to use in Q1, Q2 and Q3. For Italy, it is prescribed that hard tyres are used in Q1, mediums are mandatory in Q2 and in Q3 the drivers drive softs. By the way, should qualifying be wet, a free choice of tyres will apply.

Fewer unused tyre sets

The advantage of this set-up is that teams actually use the allocated sets of tyres. In the current situation, drivers usually choose softs (and sometimes a medium tyre) for qualifying. The hard tyre comes in much less often, sometimes during races as well. By reducing the number of tyre sets and also prescribing when to use which tyres in qualifying, Formula 1 wants to try to reduce the number of unused sets of tyres - which is obviously better in terms of sustainability.

At the Hungaroring - where this format of the qualifying was tested for the first time - it turned out that teams were much less active on the track during free practice because they wanted to save tyre sets. Several drivers, including Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso, were not happy with this new qualifying format. An evaluation will follow after the Italian Grand Prix and a decision will be made on whether this format will apply to all races in the future.