Palmer complains that yellows ruin Q1

[Monty]

I see Jolyon is reported as blaming Hamilton for pushing too hard during Q1 un-necessarily and the resultant yellows ruined runs for the smaller teams. He has probably been quoted out of context but this does raise an issue that annoys me.
With the qualifying sessions being so time and tyre limited I have always felt that small incidents cause a disproportionate amount of damage to the qualifying of other cars.
Surely with the timing technology available there must be a method of allowing 'extra-time' to compensate for the time lost by incidents such as off-circuit excursions. Possibly not on an exact one-for-one ratio but, if say there are more than two yellow periods in any one session enough time for an additional pit stop, warm-up lap and fast lap is added to that session. It might even liven-up qualifying with all of the cars out for one last 'banzi' lap.

[cosworth151]

I wonder if the main concern of the powers-that-be is squeezing it into the preset TV time block, not the quality of the racing.

[Jericoke]

It's part of the show.

In theory any one can be caught out by a yellow flag at the wrong time.  We don't often see top cars eliminated in Q1 but it has happened, and provides a far more interesting race.

The same with engine/gearbox penalties.

It is true that these elements disproportionately affect weaker teams, but that's the price of being part of a specator sport.  If you want pure racing, stick to Friday nights at the local track.