Explain Qualifying.

[WildCat]

I don't follow real-world F1 or sports in general, so my knowledge of how they are organised is practically zero.

Can anyone explain what "One-Stop", "Short" and "Full" Qualifying are in Career Mode, please?

While you're at it, a basic understanding of what a "Short Weekend" and "Long Weekend" are might help me, as well. I don't know what the 30/30/30, 90/90/60 business means when selecting or customising.

Thanks.

[propulFION]

One-stop : 1 laps for qualifying
Short : 20min of qualifying
Full : Q1 : 18min, Q2 : 15min, Q3 12min of qualifying

[razzer]

To add on what was said above, the 30/30/30 and 90/90/60 is reflective of the time legnth of the sessions, so in a real world example, Practice 1 and Practice 2 are both 90 minutes long, and Practice 3 is 60 minutes long. 90/90/60 is the legnth when chosen the full weekend setting. But it is ok if you do not want to make use of these full time, you can play full weekend, but skip to the next session whenver you want, so you can for instance, spend 10 minutes in P1, skip then use all the time in P2, then skip P3 entirely.

[cxool123]

Also in Full Qualifying, there is 22 cars in Q1, when it ends, the 6 slower cars are eliminated. Therefore Q2 takes place with 16 cars, which at the end of it the 6 slower are again eliminated. Q3 takes place with the 10 fastest cars battling for pole.

[STarScream]

One more thing to know is the tyre you choose to use during qualifying 2 (assuming you make it to qualifying 3) that will be the tyre you start the race with so consider how much you wear the tyre during qualifying 2 and which tyre you use for the strategy you want to use for the race.

[WildCat]

Okay, let me see if I understand this right. Please feel free to correct me...

First, you can do Practice sessions... those are to help you get comfortable with the track layout, helping you to learn how to take the corners, know the DRS zones, optimise tyre efficiency, consider a stategy, etc, and adapting to upgrades to the car which make the handling different as the career progresses. Obviously real drivers just need to go round and round and learn the tracks from memory, whilst the game involves virtual mechanics like passing through gates, R&D points, etc.

Then you go into Qualifying races to determing starting grid position. I'm still not 100% sure on what the difference is between one-stop/short/full exactly? Is one-stop like having a single race and you go on the grid in the same place as you finished? Short, I have no clue... 20 minutes of laps to determine fastest or average times? Full, I kind of understand that it's based on lap times... so do you just keep taking laps for 18/15/12 mins and grid positions are computed based on the fastest laps or on the average lap time? Elimination helps drivers step up their game against their better rivals.

And then you have the actual race, starting on the grid where you qualified, and practice should help you win or at least reach a high enough position to earn career points.

[STarScream]

Think of one stop as qualifying 3 except all cars participate. You dont have to keep running laps, you can do 1 lap, if your lap was the fastest out of all racers, you will start in pole position.

[STarScream]

How I do qualifying, I do 1 lap most of the time, retire from session, and go to the next qualifying session. I do that for all 3, I dont have my settings set to one stop but if I did, I would do the same thing, set a lap that I'm happy with and retire from session. You don't have to wait around for the time to expire, you can just hit escape, then click "retire from session".