The Australian race stewards are unlikely to enforce the 107 per cent rule this weekend because of the massive technical changes.
The regulation states that any driver who doesn’t record a time during Q1 within 107 per cent of the fastest time set during that session, won’t take part in the race.
However the stewards are able to review each case based on practice times and exceptional circumstances.
With the new V6 power units and the unknown reliability of each car, the FIA’s Charlie Whiting has confirmed that the stewards will likely take a lenient approach, even if a car hasn’t set a competitive time during practice.
“The 107 per cent rule was introduced to make sure that teams that were not capable of producing a good car that was of the required performance would not get into the actual races,” said Whiting on Thursday.
“What we have out here are 11 teams who we know are capable, but they may be suffering a temporary performance loss.
“I am sure the stewards will look very sympathetically on any team that does not make the 107 per cent.
“There is a mechanism within the rules to allow that to be done under exceptional circumstances. It doesn’t always have to be because a driver set a suitable time in a previous session.”
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