Ready to Race: Final Grid Positions

At the end of Saturday qualifying a sheet showing the provisional grid positions is published. It is provisional while the cars are checked over to ensure they comply with weight and tyre regulations. Once this has been confirmed a final grid will be issued.
By this time the drivers will be well into their debrief with their engineers, logging the behaviour of the car and making final plans for the following day�s race strategy. A few hours later they�ll be sleeping, ready to be in peak shape for the climax of the weekend � the race itself.

Surrendering grid position

A team may accept a lower grid position than possible. Basically teams would do so in one of two situations:

• _ The race team decides that its best race strategy involves a heavy fuel load and that the disadvantage a heavy load brings in qualifying will be more than made up for during the race. This strategy is feasible only at tracks where overtaking isn�t too difficult.
• _ A driver has qualified so badly that the team reasons it would be better to start him from the pit lane. Opting for a pit lane start after all

the others have reached the first corner allows the team the option of changing its fuel load � something that it can�t do if it starts from the grid. If everyone else had opted for a two fuel stops so that their cars were lighter during qualifying, going for one fuel stop is theoretically the quickest way to complete the race and could put you on a better strategy than everyone else. Of course, the benefit of starting from pit lane could outweigh that of starting from the grid only if you had qualified a long way down the grid and had little to lose.

No stopping for the weather

A driver may begin his qualifying lap in the dry and then have the heavens open half-way through. If so, it�s his tough luck. Conversely the track may be damp as qualifying begins but then dry out as the session goes on, thereby giving a massive advantage to those late in the running order. Due to bad weather, the warm-up at the British Grand Prix was heavily delayed a few years ago, and in the 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix the race started under a Safety Car, but qualifying has never been affected and this random factor is part and parcel of the new qualifying format introduced for the 2003 season.

Supermen with super powers?

A lot of myths have built up about what makes a driver quick. Surprisingly, superhuman eyesight and reflexes don�t seem to be a major factor. When tested, Michael Schumacher�s reflexes were decidedly average, for example. What makes a driver quick seems more to do with how the driver feels the behaviour of the car through the seat of his pants and his hands, and how soon and subtly he is able to perceive directional change through his inner ear.
This is where natural ability takes a driver places that data-logging and telemetry never can. Schumacher�s telemetry reveals entry speeds that team mates of the past have tried to simply copy � only to find themselves flying off the road. Only the natural feel and balance of a truly great driver can keep the car on the absolute knife-edge from the beginning of the corner to the end. This is where this most high

Cutting corners during qualifications

Braking for corners, and taking the corners, are where the skill is involved. Anyone can press their throttle foot to the floor and go quickly down the straights. How corners are taken is what separates the champion from the no-hoper.
Putting together the ultimate qualifying lap is an incredible balancing act for a driver. He must use his judgment and �feel� to find the latest possible braking point for each corner, the highest possible entry speed, and the earliest possible application of full throttle. Setting the car up during the practices is all about helping him achieve this. Different drivers have different styles and techniques and they need to set up the car in a way that best suits their individual requirements. Think of a corner as having three separate phases � entry (the approach to the corner), apex (the corner�s sharpest angle), and exit (the end of the corner). At this level of racing all the drivers will be on the correct line and travelling at about the same speed as they go into and through a corner. Finding an advantage is all about the tiniest of margins, and some drivers find theirs from their entry into a corner, others from their exit.
One tends to compromise the other � that is, going fast into a corner negatively impacts how quickly you can make it out the corner, and vice versa �so finding the ultimate trade-off is the key. A driver who can take more entry speed into a corner � who can get the car on the very limit right from the moment he begins braking � and then not be more than proportionally penalised on the exit, will be quick. But he needs to be able to do this on every corner for a decent qualifying lap.
Some drivers can deal with certain handling characteristics better than others. A car that oversteers (at the limit, the rear end breaks away first) can make some drivers very tentative. But while the opposite characteristic of understeer (where the front end loses grip before the rear) brings more stability and allows such drivers more confidence to push to the limit, it is usually slower. A driver relaxed with a measure of oversteer can usually get the car turned into the corner more efficiently than one who relies on the stability of understeer.

Getting pole is king

Being fastest in Saturday qualifying earns a driver pole position on the starting grid. This means he starts from the very front. Because overtaking is very difficult in a modern Formula One car, pole position carries an enormous advantage.
The tighter the track, the bigger this advantage tends to be. At tracks such as Monte Carlo or the Hungaroring, overtaking is close to impossible if the driver ahead doesn�t make a mistake. A driver getting pole position at either of these tracks may be considered to have the race half-won already.
In 2002, Michelin brought some super-soft compound qualifying tyres to Monte Carlo to enable its drivers to monopolise the front row of the grid. These tyres performed poorly in the race, as the soft compound led to rapid deterioration � but it didn�t matter. With track positioning all-important at Monte Carlo, Michelin-shod David Coulthard was able to keep Bridgestone user Michael Schumacher behind him throughout the race, even though Schumacher demonstrated that he could go at least 1 second per lap faster. Had he been able to lead from the start, Schumacher could conceivably have won by almost a lap. As it was, his qualifying position had consigned him to runner-up.
Not all tracks have such a lack of overtaking opportunities. At places such as Interlagos in Brazil or Hockenheim in Germany, you may see teams less concerned about pole position, especially if it means compromising their race strategies to achieve it.

Saturday qualifying: Improvisation

The rules dictate that no fuel can be added to the cars between the end of Saturday qualifying and the beginning of the race on Sunday. Furthermore, no changes can be made in the set-up of the cars during this period either. The direct result of these regulations is that the drivers must do their one qualifying lap on Saturday with enough fuel on board to get them to their first pit stop in the race on Sunday.
Driving a heavily-laden car on the limit without any build-up laps is an extremely difficult thing to do and perhaps represents the biggest challenge facing a driver all weekend.
When a driver spins or leaves the track during qualifying, that�s it. He gets no second chance. He does have the option, however, of continuing the lap (assuming the car�s still driveable) or aborting it. Aborting the lap can save him around a lap�s worth of fuel � which could be critical on race day. He will start from the back of the field then � but it�s likely that he would have done anyway had he spun.

Friday qualifying: No compromise

The results of Friday qualifying determine the order the cars take to the track on Saturday. The fastest car on Friday is the last car out on Saturday �theoretically the best slot. The results of Saturday qualifying determine the starting order of the race.
For Friday qualifying, the driver and his engineers don�t need to concern themselves with anything other than how to get the car around the track on its one flying lap as fast as possible. The car need have only enough fuel on board to get it through an out-lap, the flying lap, and an in-lap. Typically, cars will carry less than 10kg of fuel � compared to as much as 70kg during Saturday qualifying when there also needs to be enough fuel on board to enable the car to do its first race stint on Sunday. The difference between 10kg and 70kg of fuel can be as much as 1.8s per lap at some tracks. In addition to the lower weight, the cars are set up for ultimate speed over one lap, with no compromise for tyre wear or raceablity. For these reasons, on Friday qualifying, you will probably see the cars go faster than at any other stage of the weekend. A spin or a non-completion of a lap on Friday means that you will be at the back of the timesheets and therefore the first one to take to the track for Saturday qualifying � theoretically the slowest slot because the track will be at its dirtiest. Tyres of other cars will clear the dust and build up a layer of rubber on the track surface, making the track faster as the session goes on.