Qualifying / race pace disparity (discusses today's race)

[LocoBlade]

A lot has been said this season of Red Bull's blistering qualifying pace which seems to largely disappear on race day against their immediate opposition, but having watched todays race at Barcelona, I'm starting to wonder whether it might not be Red Bull who have the disparity, but more that Mclaren are slow in qualifying compared to most of the opposition, relative to their race pace.

If that's true then this weekend was the starkest example yet, the Red Bulls were on the front row by best part of a second whilst the Mclaren's were split by Alonso (admittedly on a perfect lap as he put it), and only a few tenths quicker than the Renault and Merc. If those qualifying times were to translate to race pace we'd have had the 2 Red Bulls pretty much lapping everyone and the Mclarens fighting Alonso for the last spot on the podium a few seconds up the road from the Mercs and Renault.

What seems to have happened in the race is that most of the top 10 have performed roughly on a par with their qualifying performance with most of the top 10 pretty much getting lapped, apart from Mclaren who stepped up and could match Red Bull on race pace.

So, perhaps it's more that Mclaren can't for some reason fully expliot their car in qualifying rather than anything else, I know Red Bull seem to be able to use their DRS in corners where others can't but I wonder perhaps whether the Mclaren looses too much balance when DRS is deployed meaning the drivers don't use it so much in the corners during qualifying even compared to the rest of the front runners, or more simply that they can't get the tyres to work as well over a lap.

Anyone else got any thoughts on what's going on?

[Altrezia]

I'd agree. It could be simple as the DRS theory, or that their car is just better with more fuel on board compared to the others.

[Scuffers]

Altrezia said:

their car is just better with more fuel on board compared to the others.

this.

[LocoBlade]

If it was just fuel then they'd be slow at the end of the race relative to the Red Bulls, which doesn't seem to be the case. It could be how they use new tyres on low fuel, which comes back to how they switch on the tyres in quali.

[zac510]

I think it's quite simply that they (ie, the engineers) have far more variables in the car design this year. Primarily the variables are fuel level, DRS factor (the strength of drag reduction is down to the team), KERS, fresh tyre availability and prime/option differential. None of these factors are dependent upon one another and the operating window of tyre grip and aerodynamic grip the car is no longer so narrow. The car needs to deal with a wider range of parameters and it's difficult to get the car to deal with them all. Some teams have done better than others at certain aspects which is why some excel at certain parts of the race. For example Mercedes goes backwards once the race starts and the Red Bulls start slow and get faster as the fuel burns and fresh tyres come aboard.

Consequently the fastest way to complete the race is to have the highest average speed throughout the combination of these factors. RBR still excels but in today's race the ineffectivenes of DRS and general lack of ability to overtake hurt them. The rest fell into line of their qualifying pace.