Europe: Confusion reigns in qualifying

By Huw Alban
May 6 2006

Christijan Albers should have been in the top 16 in qualifying today, but an issue with the timing screens 3 minutes from the end of the first 15 minute session conspired to work against the team. Midland F1 will line up 18th and 20th for tomorrows Grand Prix.

The first 15 minute session started quickly for Midland F1 with Tiago and Christijan both out in the first 2 minutes. The ITV commentary speculated that this Grand Prix is set to be super competitive across the entire grid, and are expecting some of the bigger names to be knocked out in the first 15 minute session.

Both men set quick times on their first lap, Tiago on a 1.33.658 and Christijan a 1.32.936 enough for 2nd and 3rd at this point. Both men immediately pitted. The TV commentary noted that MF1 have thrown down a challenge to their closest competitors by setting quick times in this session.

With 6 minutes to go Midland are 6th and 8th, at 5 minutes 9th and 11th with other cars setting times.

4 minutes to go and still no further signs from Midland F1. At 3.28 a red flag suddenly appears, but is reset several seconds later! The TV commentary suggests that there was some confusion in the timing system, and the coverage showed both MF1 cars being pushed back into the garage. Both Midland F1 cars are straight back out - Albers is 16th and Monteiro 18th - and that's the way the first session ended.

The second session started 10 minutes later than planned, with the TV commentary still talking about the erronious red flag and suggesting that an enquiry would be talking place as to why a red flag was thrown in the first place.

ITV caught up with Johnny Herbert in the pit lane to ask him about this curious situation. "We were through before that (the red flag), but then as far as when the red flag came on our screens - we're not sure if we saw it at the end of the pit lane or not, but it came on on the screens", he said to Louise Goodman. "Obviously both cars stopped as they went out, they got pushed back in here and then as they got pushed back again there was no red flag. So it was total confusion for us and unfortunately for Tiago he lost out because he never got back out on track. But I think it really only seemed to affect us unfortunately, but it was - you know - Christijan did a cracking job of being able to get through to the next round."

The timing screens when dark whilst this enquiry was taking place, but suddenly reappeared but now Christijan is showing 18th!

It would appear that the times completed by any competitor whilst they were on the red flag lap have been credited. I can tell you that my communications with the team came back very blue - they are not happy! I can also tell you that Midland F1 are looking into the entire situation.