cargo Wrote:you still need to know what you're doing and where you're going to achieve that time.

And so it should be, Cargo: one big difference these days is that it seems impossible to do the 20 or 30 laps that we managed in my day. As Tom Loughbridge quite rightly says, the first five sessions are to relearn the course, set up the bikes and so on, very fast laps should only be attempted after you have thoroughly dialled yourself in. Those of us who rode Ron May's Triumph 500 will well remember him being very cross if you didn't do three or four laps on it in a session, and you could not do that if you slept in until the sun was up!
I would suggest that minimum qualifying should also include the need to do at least, say, ten laps of practice, so many of which should be within qualifying time, and exemptions should be rare. If this means more practice sessions, then so be it - if rider (and marshall/spectator) safety really is more important than Jolyon Cholmondley-Smythe getting to his job as a banker without problems!