Sebastian Vettel is not surprised by F1's live elimination qualifying farce because drivers warned the sport's bosses it was going to happen.
The new format was met with widespread disapproval after a farcical first run in Australia. The revised system saw drivers spend lots of time in the garage, with Vettel himself out of the car with over three minutes left in Q3 having secured third on the grid behind the Mercedes drivers.
"I even had time to get changed before the press conference," Vettel said. "We all said it was going to happen, so I don't know why people are surprised. We were told to wait and see, we waited and we saw it, that's it.
"It didn't work, it was all about managing traffic at the start of the sessions, crazy at the beginning, everyone pushing to get one lap in, but there's no reason for that. There were no cars to watch at the end of the session, when the track is better, and a big rush at the start of the session"
Vettel does not think making changes for the sake of it is a sensible tactic for F1 bosses, especially if it leads to such negative responses.
"At the end there were no cars on the track for the fans to see, when they wanted to see Lewis [Hamilton], Nico [Rosberg], Kimi [Raikkonen] or whoever to be out there now. We don't need the criticism now, we had the criticism before, but this is surely the wrong way to go. We can't just try things, we have to try things that make sense, instead of trying things that everyone criticises."