qualifying vs race times - I dont understand

[bordseye]

If you look at the race results, the gaps between cars are way greater than the number of laps multiplied by the gar that there was in quali. In some cases there will be obvious causes like a messed uppit stop, but ofetn there is no obvious ( to me) reason why the final gap should be as bit as it is.

And I bet that it will be big today with the gap between red bull and mclaren far greater than 71 times the 0.05 secs of quali.

Why?

[SmoothCriminal]

Because race pace and quali pace are two different things.

There are many reason race paces are different but no driver or car can manage a full race distance at quali pace.

[Muzzer79]

Firstly, it’s impossible to follow another car on the track 0.05 seconds behind. Aero wake, etc will see you lose more time because qualifying is run ‘solo’ and not as a race.

Secondly, you carry more fuel in the race. This affects the car.

Thirdly, you have to use both tyre compounds - car maybe varyingly slower than the one in front on mediums/softs.

Also, pit stops, etc.

[Exige77]

In qualifying they use DRS every lap also.

Makes big difference to lap time.

[Teddy Lop]

SmoothCriminal said:

Because race pace and quali pace are two different things.

There are many reason race paces are different but no driver or car can manage a full race distance at quali pace.

The car, the tyres and in most cases the driver wouldn't hold up

[rdjohn]

I think the problem for the OP is the excessive amount of time that SKY and many others spend obsessing about fastest laps, rather than race pace Vs tyre degradation.

Every fast lap is done with DRS open, whereas an opening opportunity might only present itself 5, or 6, times during a race. Possibly never if you are leading.

It will be interesting at Silverstone to see what lap times are during the Sprint race for grid placings.

The two things that you can be fairly certain of today is that Lando won’t finish second and George probably won’t finish in the top-10. They are both well out of position.

[Piginapoke]

It’s the tyres

[HustleRussell]

Also OP is assuming that all drivers do an equally good job in qualifying. In reality, Verstappen left a couple of tenths on the table yesterday whilst one suspects the McLaren of Norris had little or nothing left in it.

[Welshbeef]

SmoothCriminal said:

Because race pace and quali pace are two different things.

There are many reason race paces are different but no driver or car can manage a full race distance at quali pace.

Years ago in Le Mans pug and Audi (TDI)S we’re at bear quali pace the entire race insane and nothing in it by the end too.

[Rick101]

Back seats down for Quali.

[DanielSan]

Tyres, fuel, running to a lap time number for strategic purposes, more difficult to follow cars closely when you're trying to manage cooling of the car, pit stops. It's a long list of factors even before things like driver error and incidents come into it.

[bordseye]

On average issue of tyres and pit stops and fuel weight should affect every team equally. The two differnces pointed out on here seem to be the use of DRS or rather its non use on many laps of the race, and driver fatigue and fall in concentration. Though even then I am not convinced - after all Verstappen had almost no use of DRS in the race did he?

Edited by bordseye on Monday 5th July 07:01

[HustleRussell]

bordseye said:

On average issue of tyres and pit stops and fuel weight should affect every team equally.

Why? If that was the case, why bother having a race strategy team? and why bother drilling & practicing pit stops? and why bother continuously developing and optimising the configuration and setup of the car to help the driver extend the life of the tyres?

You are attempting to dismiss off hand a large chunk of the race time differentiation between drivers.

[SturdyHSV]

Let's take Max as an example.

Qualifying is about going as quickly as possible.

The race is about going as slowly as possible (whilst still winning, naturally).

[HustleRussell]

We haven’t discussed the deployment of electrical energy and how the driver is sent out in qualifying with a fully charged battery and does a 3-5 lap run, deploying the maximum permissible amount of electrical energy on only 1 or 2 of those laps doing very little regen- whereas in the race the driver has to manage his battery state and moderate his pace and his driving in order to harvest.

If a runner can run 100m in 10 seconds, why can they not run the 10k in 1,000 seconds? In terms of energy, tyre and fuel management, this is a valid analogy.

Edited by HustleRussell on Monday 5th July 10:45

[parabolica]

bordseye said:

On average issue of tyres and pit stops and fuel weight should affect every team equally. The two differnces pointed out on here seem to be the use of DRS or rather its non use on many laps of the race, and driver fatigue and fall in concentration. Though even then I am not convinced - after all Verstappen had almost no use of DRS in the race did he?

Edited by bordseye on Monday 5th July 07:01

Drivers/cars don't go as fast as quali when they are racing in a pack - everyone is focussing on the car in front or car behind to maintain or better their position. The focus comes off putting in the quickest lap possible because there are other priorities at stake; especially if the cars/teams are of equal competitiveness (i.e. the mid-field). I always find it amazing Ham Bot Ver can regularly pull a 15+ second gap to 4th place (usually) within 10-15 laps of a race; but they tend to run at a faster pace than the others.

Then add into the mix driver's mistakes, or avoidance of others mistakes, or strategy, or the pit stops, or traffic, or reliability.

There are so many variables at play that can affect each driver individually. It's not like they're all standing around a Scalextric track.

[AW111]

parabolica said:

Drivers/cars don't go as fast as quali when they are racing in a pack - everyone is focussing on the car in front or car behind to maintain or better their position. The focus comes off putting in the quickest lap possible because there are other priorities at stake; especially if the cars/teams are of equal competitiveness (i.e. the mid-field). I always find it amazing Ham Bot Ver can regularly pull a 15+ second gap to 4th place (usually) within 10-15 laps of a race; but they tend to run at a faster pace than the others.

Then add into the mix driver's mistakes, or avoidance of others mistakes, or strategy, or the pit stops, or traffic, or reliability.

There are so many variables at play that can affect each driver individually. It's not like they're all standing around a Scalextric track.

I like the sound of Ham Bot Ver. New star wars character?

[HighwayToHull]

AW111 said:

I like the sound of Ham Bot Ver. New star wars character?

Remembering Jar Jar Binks, be careful what you wish for ...