Qualifying to be shortened in 2008

The Formula One teams have agreed to change the qualifying session in order to get rid of the fuel burning laps. In the final 15-minutes of the qualifying session, the drivers burn as much fuel as they can to make their car as light as possible for the final laps of the session.

Pat Symonds said during the Friday press conference: "The Sporting Working Group met here in Monza on Wednesday and among the items on the agenda was a proposal that just slightly modified the qualifying procedure, but in so doing got rid of the fuel-burning laps.

"The way it did it was to have a more limited time in Q3 in the final part of qualifying and to still re-fuel before that so you still had to put in the fuel that would do your qualifying and your race, but because the qualifying was shorter and because you got no credit back on Sunday morning, you simply put in what you needed for qualifying and the race. That achieved a majority vote in favour of it and it will therefore go to the World Council for their October meeting for application next year."