How to make drivers make mistakes

What did Valtteri Bottas, Pastor Maldonado, Kamui Kobayashi and Marcus Ericsson have in common during the Austrian Grand Prix weekend?

They were the only drivers to string together a lap in qualifying that was the sum of their best individual times in each of the three sectors of the Red Bull Ring.

The one ultimate goal of any driver in qualifying is to string together their best possible lap. Even if they are struggling, a driver still has to do their own personal optimum.

A look at the difference between theoretical best laps, based on adding together each driver's three best sector times during qualifying, and comparing it with their fastest overall on Saturday afternoon, is often a useful indicator as to how successful they have been in achieving this.

There are caveats. Track conditions can change and yellow flags, such as the one caused by Lewis Hamilton's spin at the end of Q3, can interrupt strong laps.

But throughout the weekend in Austria, there were consistent examples of drivers struggling to string together their perfect laps. Notably, it was a driver who got very close to his ultimate, Felipe Massa (who gave away just eight-thousandths of a second), who took pole position.

             Ideal lap   Best lap    Time lost
Hamilton     1m08.658s   1m09.092s   0.434s
Massa        1m08.751s   1m08.759s   0.008s
Rosberg      1m08.756s   1m08.944s   0.188s
Bottas       1m08.846s   1m08.846s   0s    
Alonso       1m09.025s   1m09.285s   0.260s
Magnussen    1m09.288s   1m09.515s   0.227s
Kvyat        1m09.336s   1m09.619s   0.283s
Ricciardo    1m09.375s   1m09.466s   0.091s
Perez        1m09.559s   1m09.754s   0.195s
Raikkonen    1m09.581s   1m09.657s   0.076s
Hulkenberg   1m09.586s   1m09.624s   0.038s
Button       1m09.652s   1m09.780s   0.128s
Vettel       1m09.733s   1m09.801s   0.068s
Vergne       1m09.846s   1m10.073s   0.227s
Maldonado    1m09.939s   1m09.939s   0s    
Grosjean     1m10.362s   1ml0.612s   0.280s
Sutil        1m10.765s   1m10.825s   0.060s
Gutierrez    1m11.291s   1ml1.319s   0.058s
Bianchi      1m11.390s   1m11.412s   0.022s
Chilton      1m11.550s   1ml1.775s   0.225s
Kobayashi    1m11.673s   1m11.673s   0s    
Ericsson     1m12.432s   1m12.673s   0.241s

For qualifying sessions with relatively consistent conditions, even with the occasional yellow flag, the strike rate of the 22 drivers collectively is unusually low. The track configuration played a key role in this.

Hamilton lost the biggest amount of time in qualifying © LAT

Ever since the Osterreichring was revived in its truncated configuration, people have obsessed about the fact that it is no longer the old track.

Yes, the 'real' Osterreichring was mighty - and when Hermann Tilke reworked the circuit for its revival in the 1990s, restoring the original version was seriously evaluated but proved impossible - but if you can look past the nostalgic fixation on what the new circuit isn't and concentrate on what it is, there are key lessons to learn.

The bottom line is that the Red Bull Ring is a track that invites errors, and generates plenty. Not big mistakes that send cars heavily into tyre barriers or bring a driver's race to a premature end, but small ones that cost little bits of time here and there and make a big difference to the end result.

Even race winner Nico Rosberg was caught out, the rear of his Mercedes stepping out during the turn-in phase for Turn 1 on lap 30, the necessary correction spitting him wide and allowing Valtteri Bottas to challenge for the lead. And Rosberg's team-mate and title rival Lewis Hamilton was caught out by one of the circuit's demanding braking zones, complicated by a bumpy surface.

Watching at Turn 1 during Friday practice, it was fascinating to see drivers experimenting with what they could and could not get away with. It was possible to take a bite of the inside kerb, but attempt to claim a fraction too much and it destabilised the car.

Those who braked a fraction too late didn't simply run wide and lose a tiny amount of time. Instead, they would either lock up and go off or run wide at the exit and either risk clattering over the vicious yellow 'sausage' kerb at the exit that prevents the use of the lines that used the asphalt run-off as a legitimate part of the track last time F1 was here in 2003.

The innocuous-looking sausage kerbs are the ideal way to stop liberties taken by drivers at corners that aren't too fast, ensuring that drivers lose momentum, not to mention imperilling their floors, without increasing the chances of an accident. These need to be used more widely than they already are.

All around the circuit are corners that, while not spectacular in themselves, offer challenges that make it very difficult for drivers to nail the perfect lap. Tricky uphill and downhill braking areas, along with crests and cambers, make life difficult, while the innocuous kink that is Turn 7 is there to cost time for drivers who run wide out of Turn 6, as Valtteri Bottas discovered on his final Q3 run, or emerge from the corner with the rear end not completely under control.

Mistakes were common t in Austria © XPB

Turn 8 is another good example of a corner that can cost drivers a lot. It's a fast turn, followed immediately by another quick one leading onto the start/finish straight so any momentum through here gives a significant laptime disadvantage.

Trees lining the circuit on entry mean that, at certain times of day, the sun is blocked and therefore the track surface temperature can be lower, throwing another variable into the mix.

The braking zone is downhill following a crest, the camber not consistent and the drivers see far less than watching from the rollhoop-mounted onboard camera might suggest. Often, those obviously running wide and being picked up by the stewards didn't know they had.

As Romain Grosjean said after qualifying, "the entry is blind, the exit kerb is blind and I was caught going there a few times but said I didn't think I was".

Even the pit entry, which is not the safest on the calendar, also offers a test to drivers. Many times, they had moments at the 'exit' of the Turn 8 pit-entry line (demarked by the white line).

The only dissatisfying aspect of this corner is that stewards had to take action to delete laptimes for drivers exceeding track limits, as well as warning before the race that those who did run wide were not expected to make a pass into Turn 1.

It was the right thing to do, but the lack of some piece of track furniture that ensured there was a time loss without compromising safety was frustrating. This is a wider concern of circuit design that is addressed here. Ideally, stewards shouldn't have to intervene.

The track also encourages overtaking. It's clearly possible at Turn 1, Turn 2 and even Turn 3, while Lewis Hamilton proved that, with some courage, a move into Turn 8 is not out of the question.

That's not bad at all for an innocuous-looking strip of tarmac that F1 cars can blast round in little over a minute.

The lessons of this superficially straightforward track must be heeded in future track designs, where the driving challenge should be the number-one demand.