Not sure that'd be such a good idea...

1- 'cause they will have no one to learn from. It's not like most novices will be able to close a 5sec gap...

2 -because if they do try to close that gap we're not gonna be finishing many races without a red flag.

3 - I think with them being novices the idea is to make it simpler for them... imagine what would happen if there were 5-6s novices on the same race and the guy on the back got jumpy and went on the 1st lights.