This season’s British GT Championship could feature a radical new qualifying format following a recent meeting between series bosses and team principals.
The move comes in the wake of other series implementing changes to their qualifying procedures and subsequently canning them before reinstating the same ideas with a provision for revoking them. Again.
British GT’s new system, set to be introduced in time for its opening round at Brands Hatch in two weeks, navigates the same potential pitfall by assigning every known qualifying procedure in world motorsport an individually numbered ticket. These are then placed in a large tombola, which is spun several times, before one ticket is chosen at random to determine the subsequent qualifying session’s format.
It means drivers and teams will have just five minutes to prepare for whatever method of qualifying is chosen. These range from a single timed flying lap to the entire month of May.
If approved, the new format will replace a system that literally no-one has expressed an interest in changing.
Nevertheless, British GT Championship sources are adamant the new system will Improve The Show™.
“Well it’s different, and different is good, right?” tentatively asked an insider. “There’s nothing at all wrong with our current qualifying procedure - in fact it’s rather good - but we wanted to implement something that’s not been tried before. So think of the tombola as a big bag of Revels: one week we might pull out an unpopular and contrived shootout format - the coffee flavoured one, if you like - while the next could be three two-hour-long day and night sessions that require rookie drivers to complete a minimum number of laps in the dark.”
However, the mole did baulk at the idea of including Formula 1’s controversial new knockout system in the selection.
“Not even British GT would be that stupid,” he added.
It’s understood that a final decision on whether to implement changes to this year’s qualifying format will be made at noon today.