Do I want to vote to add qualifying?

[reider2k]

So I’m new to the game but I’ve already put about 30+ hours into my first and only career mode game where I started as my own team in the ERS.

After flagging behind for a few years while learning the ropes I’m now doing okay I guess and getting regular top ten finishes and aiming for about 4th or 5th overall.

There have been quite a few major game changing rules over the first 4 seasons, the main ones being that I am now doing longer races of around 30-40 laps on average with larger fuel tanks which can run for about 75% of the race, meaning one pit stop can be a feasible option depending on tyre choices and number of laps.

Watching the other AI drivers they all seem to run on Overtake mode for about 90% of the race, presumably because of the large fuel tanks, naturally this puts a lot of wear on the engine and parts and Is something I struggle with in the first few races of the season when reliability is low.

So anyway, onto the question, I’m now faced with a vote to add qualifying sessions and I’m not sure which way to vote.

On one hand with me finishing in the top 6-10 most of the time if I can do similiar results in qualifying it should be a benefit for me when it comes to the race.

What I’m worried about is will the qualifying sessions put extra wear on my parts meaning I’ve got to look after them even more when it comes to race day?

So in general how does qualifying work? How many laps do I have to do on average? How much wear, if any, does it put on the car or does it get reset when it gets to raceday?

Sorry for the long winded query but I thought the background info might help.

TL;DR - Should I vote to add qualifying to the ERS if I’m an above average team who struggles for reliability early on having to compete with the AI running at full overtake mode for most of the race due to larger fuel tanks being voted in already, along with longer races also being voted in.

[Tig_green]

Qualifying session won't put any wear on your cars ( unfortunately so as it's not realistic).

What grid rule you have atm, random or reversed?

There are different quali lenghts, check which one they vote on. Few runs in quali is normal. I usually just simulate quali to save time. Car rank defines alot in the quali, not much tactics there, mostly you can just mess it up.

I like to have quali as I don't really know any series where there wouldn't be a quali irl. Some have second (sprint) race with (partially) reversed grid

[reider2k]

At the moment the race grid order is reversed.

Good to know it doesn’t put extra wear on the car (Even if that is unrealistic)

I think I will vote for qualifying then because that does seem like a much better system.

The reversed order turns into a massive cluster for the first few laps with all the faster cars bunched behind the slower cars for red first few laps battling to overtake.

I imagine adding qualifying should make it a much smoother race.

Thanks for the feedback

[Trixi]

Well, if you want to win the championship you should vote for a qualifying, so you dont have to overtake all cars. The reversed grid options is good for weaker teams.

The disadvantage of a qualifying is that you have less tyres left for race and on practise you also have to try to collect some knowledge for qualifying.

[Hikyu]

And, if the rule is active, you must consider weight stripping. Remember that reliability you strip in qualify is lose for race.

[reider2k]

Originally posted by Hikyu:

And, if the rule is active, you must consider weight stripping. Remember that reliability you strip in qualify is lose for race.

Yeh thanks for the tip, weight stripping isn’t allowed at the moment but it’s something I will have to look out for then if that rule comes into effect.

The rule changes are great I think because it means no play through will quite be the same.

I’ve been watching one youtuber when refuelling isn’t allowed, points are now only awarded for the top 8 and engines are a spec build with weight stripping allowed so those rule sets would requires completely different strategy from my own game.

[HeartFoam]

3-stage quali means you don't have to spend so much time in practice getting the setup right because you can nail a 99 or 100% setup in quali. So spend practice getting all the knowledge you want. This is only a consideration if practice is very short.

I've got a monstrous Kitano save where my car is 2-3 seconds a lap quicker than anyone else. When the stats get reset and the field is close again, then I'll want to put quali back. A random / reverse grid wouldn't be great because it would be harder to overtake similar level cars. I'd prefer to start at the front.

I don't simulate sessions very often, so a season without quali also goes a lot faster. Going straight from practice to race keeps thing moving nicely.

A season without quali also puts less pressure on tyre sets, and that's *not* necessarily what you want. If you're trying to slaughter the AI, which is fun - winning is always fun - having few tyres available, plus 3-stage quali creates really interesting strategic calls and the chance the AI will not be as efficient as you.

[Stupidity]

If you feel pressured because AI constantly use overtake due to 1 refuel rule, get mechanics that has engine expert AND super overtake perk. You can super overtake all you want afterwards. If you can get such mechanic, go ahead and do quali. Superovertake comes in handy in quali too.

Edit: Also put into consideration how much practice time you have and your drivers' feedback stat. Getting lv 3 for both quali trim and race trim on top of 2 sets of tyre exp (1 for quali and 1 for race) might be a bit challenging if your drivers' feedback skills are < 15 on average (that's for long practice sessions, including getting "excellent" on all setups on both drivers. Shorter sessions require higher feedback stats or nailing the setup and then reload the practice session). If you don't have quali then you don't need to spend time on quali trim.

For a 1-stage long quali session you should be able to send your guys out for 2 runs (Short quali session) to 4 runs (Long quali session) for an average length track if you send them out simultaneously. That kind of assumes you will use auto mode on at least one of them.


Also put into considertation that rainy day quali+ race will stress your tyre set even more because you have to now share inters/wets for both sessions, especially when you have long races. So you might need to use subpar setup (such as wets for inter water level) from time to time (or you can vote change the tracks to only dry places)

[reider2k]

Thanks for all the feedback guys.

I’ve just reached the end of the season and qualifying was indeed voted in. (Not sure what the qualifying sessions are currently)

I’ve also had one other pretty big rule change this season where it’s points for the top ten only so it’s going to be a pretty interesting season with these two big changes.

I finished 4th overall in my most recent season so I’m thinking these changes will be pretty good for me generally but only time will tell.

Regarding the mechanic perks none of my current team have anything particularly useful but both of them have 18-20 in reliability and performance.

I’ve been checking pretty thoroughly for mechanics with better perks I could pick up, one guy had 2 great perks of refuelling in half the time and part fixes in half the time which I thought would have been perfect for my large fuel tank and early on in the season where parts need a bit of extra care, unfortunately I just missed out on him though.

At what point would you take a mechanic with great perks even if they had low performance and reliability, id imagine that engine expert and super overtake would be great but perhaps not worth taking if the available engineer had say a top score of 1-10 for reliability and/or performance. (Obviously depending on what they are focused on, I understand both my engineers don’t need to be perfect in both of those categories)

[Stupidity]

Perks are only as good as your rules allow them to be good. For example, less redueling time won't be of any good if refueling is banned. Or tyre change if you only have 6 dry tyres. Or sweet spot if you have no quali sessions. What I am saying is that if you find a mechanics with perks you think are useful in some set of rules, vote those rules in. Or if you need to limit a particular AI team's effectiveness with a long contract mechanics (like the team who you need to beat to advance), vote in ways such that those perks are not effective.

Edit: 1 level of factory easily offsets the stats (from 20 to 0) of 1 mechanic (performance or reliability) so if you are planning on maxing out factory ASAP, performance/reliability stats on your machanics aren't that important (especially when your mechanics has an upper limit on stats beyond which they refuse to renew contract because they want to join higher tier championships) until you stop upgrading your factory.