Learning to Fly: lessons from qualifying

Even the teams didn't know quite what to expect of the new qualifying format in Bahrain, and the first experience of the knockout system was an education for all.

Helped in part by Kimi Raikkonen's spectacular contribution, qualifying at Sakhir proved to be a show in its own right, and far more entertaining than what we've grown used to over the last three years. More importantly, along with the return of tyre changes, it helped to set up a fascinating race.

"What I'm pleased about is that we've kept the chaos bit," said Renault's director of engineering Pat Symonds. "At the end of the day, we've got one-lap qualifying, even if it's not single-lap qualifying.

"Arguably, we've added to the chaos by putting more cars in the way. That's good, because we're not necessarily always putting the quickest cars at the front, and that's important."

It goes without saying that everyone is having a long, hard look at how Kimi Raikkonen got from last to third on one-stop; how Nico Rosberg overcame a first-lap pitstop to charge to seventh. We're going to see some fascinating strategic permutations as the season goes on. And some of those who made the top ten are now well aware that it might be better to put a load more fuel in, rather than chase position.

Saving the miles

As expected, teams were extremely careful with mileage on Friday. They could hardly do anything else, considering this was the first race with the new V8s, and they had to survive into another hot weekend in Malaysia. The other factor at play was tyres.

Drivers now have seven sets for a whole weekend, which sounds like plenty. But as everyone found out, tyres soon get used up, especially with the new qualifying format. Since the qualifying/race tyre choice has been pushed into Saturday morning - the decision previously had to be made before, rather than after, Saturday practice - that also made running on Friday less appealing.

Nevertheless, at some stage they have to conduct a tyre comparison. In the recent past you automatically tried both tyres on Friday because the rules allowed you to, and the rejected set was wasted and had no effect on the rest of the weekend.

Now it does, as any tyres used on Friday are part of your overall allocation. No doubt, as the season goes in, we will see the job handed to the second drivers of championship-chasing teams, who will in effect compromise their own chances to help their teammates - something that Eddie Irvine often had to do at Ferrari under an earlier set of rules.

The tyre business certainly put the advantage into the hands of those with third cars, and particular Honda, Williams, BMW and Red Bull. Honda's game plan went a little awry when Anthony Davidson lost the first session to a gearbox problem, but at least the team had the added benefit of having been present at the test in February.

So too did Ferrari, and thus it was no surprise that both red cars appeared at the top of the times. They were helped there by the decision to fit a set of new tyres at the end of the day, something that few runners did. The same goes for Tonio Liuzzi who, boosted by the testing miles, the ability to run extensively with a bullet proof engine, and new tyres, put his Toro Rosso into the top six. And that, of course, created a few waves.

Those who'd put all their eggs in the Saturday basket were somewhat concerned when it turned out to be a cool and windy morning, and the track was awash with sand. This seriously compromised a lot of people's tyre comparison and set-up plans, but in the end they had no choice but to go out.

It was interesting to note that Ferrari chose not to do a tyre comparison at all, having based their choice on the February testing, and stuck with it. The team won't be able to do that at many races, however. Showing that the comparison isn't always a formality, the two McLaren drivers went for different choices.

By the end of this third session, the practice laps-completed table made for interesting reading. At the top of it stood the Super Aguris (Sato did 49 laps). Most people were in the high twenties, and at the bottom were the two Williams drivers, with just 17 apiece - and that included installations and ins and outs. It was a little unfair on Nico Rosberg, who only really had time to discover that Bahrain looked very different in an F1 car compared to a GP2.

Qualifying: A step into the unknown

Nobody knew quite what to expect from qualifying, but the top guys had been given a wake-up call by the Toro Rosso performance.

Before the weekend, logic suggested that the six eliminated from the first session would include the Super Aguris, the Midlands and the cars formerly known as Red Bull RB1s, but it seemed pretty clear that the latter pair had the pace to make it through the first round, which would mean embarrassment for someone spending a lot more money - and maybe even a works car or two.

Nevertheless, a lot of leading runners preferred to stay in the pits, watching the top places fill up, rather than go out and set a time. The danger of that policy was dramatically exposed when Raikkonen suffered his rear suspension failure.

Raikkonen's subsequent three-wheeled struggle back to the pits was not because he didn't want to walk, but because of a rule introduced just a couple of days earlier, which specified that any driver stopping on the track during qualifying would be eliminated, even if he'd already set a time that got him through to the next round. That was done to avoid any issues with some cars being towed back on time and others not, as outlined in our pre-season analysis.

Kimi was, in theory, eligible to have his car repaired and sent back out, but his guys now had a job list of several hours. More usefully, by getting back he was eligible to take the T-car and return to the fray at the restart. That would, however, have given him a 10-place penalty for an engine change.

Given the time available to get the Finn comfortable in the spare car, the team chose not to pursue this route, and accepted that he would have to start last. However, there will no doubt be occasions this year when spare cars come into play. Monaco springs to mind, and we will no doubt see a few more crippled cars being dragged back.

When the red flag came out, only ten cars had set a lap time, and the man on the bubble was none other than Yuji Ide. The stoppage had aborted not just Kimi's own first flying lap, but also that of several others who'd just ventured out. Surprisingly, several top guys hadn't been out at all, and yet when the clocks stopped there wasn't much more than five minutes to go. That might have sounded like plenty of time to get a lap in, but in fact it wasn't.

As explained in our pre-season analysis, the first two sessions end when the flag drops after 15 minutes - you can't finish the lap you're on. In other words, you have to leave the pits with sufficient time to do an out lap and a flying lap, which at Sakhir meant around three minutes and ten seconds for the top runners.

So, if you went straight out at the restart, you could still get two flying laps in, but there was little margin for error. And that's why everyone piled out of the pits and we had some incredible scenes as they jockeyed for position.

The risks were huge, as Ralf Schumacher found out. Already struggling for speed, he didn't get a clear lap in. Thus, a works Toyota fell into the gap vacated by Toro Rosso and was eliminated in the first round, something no one could have predicted.

It wasn't just about getting a clear lap. People suddenly woke up to the fact that had there been a second red flag in the middle of that last five minutes, there was a very real danger that none of the cars out there would have set a time. Thus, the top ten would have stayed as it was before the red flag, which meant Ide in 10th place!

Since you have to set a laptime to go through, only these 10 cars would have been eligible to progress to the top 16, and the rest would have lined up in number order. A late yellow flag would also have caused chaos and led to some penalties.

"I think it's probably not a bad idea to put a banker in at the beginning, and then go out again," said Symonds. "We'll probably do that next time..."

The lesson was learned quickly, and nobody was hanging about too much at the start of the second session. The top guys also learned pretty fast that there was no way they could glide through to round three using old tyres, and a valuable new set had to be sacrificed.

The top-ten shootout was a completely different story, and the last thing anyone was going to do was wait in the pits. This was all about doing as many laps as possible while also fitting in a change to new tyres for a final run. In fact, the battle to complete those laps was more intense than anyone expected, as everyone charged down to the pit exit to be out at the start. Again we saw some entertaining fumbling around as they got on track.

There were two ways to approach the laps issue. The first was to run as slowly as possible, with the engine turned to full economy, in order to use less fuel per lap than the 2.75kgs credit that the FIA was offering. The 110% rule ensures that nobody takes the mickey by crawling round, and at Sakhir the bogey time was around 1:40, or about 1:31 plus nine seconds.

Drivers had to drive to that sort of limit, something that isn't particularly easy. To complicate things, the 110% refers to your own quickest qualifying time, so the faster your potential, the faster you have to run in economy mode.

But the real complication is that the teams were not working with definitive numbers, as the FIA times the cars from the safety car lines at either end of the pit straight. Teams don't get that information directly, and had to make an estimation by subtracting the pit straight.

Sure enough, several drivers immediately began lapping on cue in the 1:39 bracket, but others went four or five seconds quicker, because they'd taken a different view - there was more to be gained overall by going fast enough to get an extra lap in. Was 13 laps, averaging (including the quick laps) a consumption of 2.5kgs a lap, better than 12 laps at 2.3kgs? The numbers are guesses, but these give some idea of the sums people were doing.

"We did a complete simulation of this whole procedure at Barcelona the other week," noted Symonds. "We got our cars a little bit close together so we had to speed one up and slow one down a little bit, but the drivers are pretty good at that. They've got cockpit displays to help them."

The tyre changes provided unexpected drama. We anticipated that everyone would come in with four or five minutes to go, put on a new set, and get a couple of laps in (this session does run on beyond the chequered flag, so there's more margin).

But Ferrari and Honda surprised rivals by taking on new tyres not just once, but twice. And when they came in, we had the fascinating sight of them effectively doing race-fast pitstops in order to get out on track as soon as possible. Indeed, both teams had two sets of crewmen lined up to ensure that not a second was wasted and neither driver had to wait - not everyone had thought of that.

All the top guys tried to get two flying laps in each set of new tyres, and whether the best time was set on the first or second lap varied enormously, and depended on traffic and the characteristics of the individual tyres.

"In many ways, it was more exciting than I thought," Ferrari's technical director Ross Brawn said after the session. "I thought the Q3, with everyone going round for 10 or 12 laps, was going to be boring. But that was like a little breather in the middle of all the action, so it wasn't too bad at all."

How did it affect the race?

When the dust settled, we had plenty to ponder. Qualifying had been an event in itself, and had provided an interesting grid, but its legacy was far from over. Of course, for the past three seasons the fuel left in the car has had a direct effect on laps run in the race, as it does now. But this time we also had to consider the laps run in qualifying, plus how teams had used their tyres over the two days.

The laps completed by the key players made for fascinating reading. By only coming into the pits for one tyre change, the Renaults had run 14 laps. In contrast, the Ferraris had run 12. But Honda had done two changes and yet squeezed in 13 laps, one more than the Ferraris. Was the team more efficient with their management of the session, and particularly their stops? Or had Ferrari just decided that fewer slower laps were better in terms of how much fuel they used and got back from the FIA? Hard to tell.

This was, of course, new ground for the teams, but also for the FIA, and its own procedures didn't run as smoothly as hoped.

After issuing a signed document on Saturday night verifying the laps completed, race director Charlie Whiting had to amend it on race morning when it was realised that one of Michael Schumacher's laps was run at 110.9% (he blamed traffic) and was therefore discounted. Juan Pablo Montoya also lost two priceless laps.

Schumacher was now three laps down on Fernando Alonso, 11 to 14 in terms of fuel put back into the car for the race. Of course, we couldn't know how much either man had left in the tank at the end of qualifying, but those three laps were a strong hint that the Ferrari man would be stopping first.

The tyre situation was also intriguing. The German had used two sets of tyres on Friday, one on Saturday morning, one in the second qualifying session, and two in final qualifying. He thus had just one new set left for the race, while Alonso had saved two sets. In contrast to the single-lap format, this year teams are free to use whichever set of tyres they wish at the start, and the team's individual choices were determined by grid position and fuel strategy.

With two new sets to play with, it was a no-brainer for Alonso to fit new tyres for the start. Fourth on the grid, he needed every advantage he could get over that first lap as he tried to make up places.

You might expect everyone else to go for new tyres at the start, but Schumacher didn't. Ferrari's thinking took various factors into account. Firstly, he had Felipe Massa riding shotgun alongside him, and Alonso - one had to assume that the Renault was still a threat at the start despite the switch to V8s - also had to get past Jenson Button, who was third on the grid. Therefore, Michael could probably get away without the benefit of new rubber.

Secondly, the team knew that the timing of Schumacher's first stop meant that the first stint would be the shortest of the three by some margin, so it was worth using up older tyres. And thirdly, the likelihood was that after the first stop the Ferrari man would need to sprint in order to stay ahead of his pursuers, and that's when new rubber would be handy. If he had sufficient margin, he could also still save the new tyres for after the second stop, if it seemed likely that that a sprint then would be even more critical.

Fernando versus Michael

In the end, Schumacher did save those new tyres for the second stop, and he did put in some fast times right at the start of his third and final run. But it still wasn't quite enough to beat Alonso. The Spaniard ran new-new-old, but all that third, scrubbed set had to do was carry him to the end of the pitlane and allow him to scrabble out of turn 1 in front of Schumacher. After that, there was nothing Michael could do.

Alonso scrabbling out just in front of his rival was the key moment, and also a reminder of just how critical a lap here and there can be in a race - and thus how important those lap totals are going to be in qualifying. Michael stopped on lap 15, Fernando on lap 19. The Spaniard didn't get ahead at that stage, but managed it at the second stops, which came on laps 36 and 39 respectively.

Although the pass came not at the first stops but at the second, it still relates directly back to qualifying. Ferrari put as little in the tank as it dared at the first stop in order to keep Michael ahead, knowing that Renault could respond at Fernando's first stop and still ensure that come what may he pitted later second time around.

Schumacher rued losing that one lap the FIA docked, but in the end it was his mistake to lose too much time while jockeying for a clear piece of road in that 20-minute scramble. Ferrari also made the compromise of stopping twice for new tyres in qualifying - it helped to secure them the front row, but lost a lap of race fuel relative to Renault. But as noted earlier, in also stopping twice for tyres during qualifying Honda managed to record one more lap than Ferrari.

From now on, we're no doubt going to see an even more intense effort to get those laps in, and the decision to try one or two sets will be a very difficult one. There will be tracks where the benefits to be derived from having extra new sets for the race will be much bigger than they were in Bahrain.

Ferrari nearly did it, but in the end there was one factor that Schumacher could do nothing about. Had Massa managed to keep Alonso behind on the first lap, as Ferrari had no doubt banked on, things might have turned out differently. As it was, Alonso's new tyres helped to give him that critical edge on that first lap and set up a fabulous performance.

"It was a really exciting race, a really difficult race," said Symonds. "But I think that's what the public likes to see, and it's what we enjoy as well. It was almost perfect, but we always feel disappointed when we have a second car that stops.

"But Fernando's race was absolutely the way we like to go racing. He totally understood the race. He knew what he needed to do, and he did bloody well, I think. It's what we expect of him; he really read the race well.

"I said it last year, I think at times he was being very conservative, and I knew damn well that when he didn't need to be, he wouldn't be. You saw it in China. This is much more the Fernando that we really enjoy seeing."

The engine factor

As a final note, one of the benefits of this knockout system is that one race does not impact upon another, in that the qualifying order is not determined by how the cars finished the previous race. But in a less direct way, there is still an impact from one event to the next.

As noted, teams plan engine usage with great precision these days, and Williams in particular were being frugal. The intriguing thing is that all V8 runners bar Midland and Super Aguri have to assume that they will get through to the top ten, and they thus have to factor those 12-14 laps of running into their weekend budget. Thus, if you don't make into the top ten, you effectively get those miles back.

When you're at the first race of a two-race cycle, you can use these laps at the second race. Just consider the case of Nico Rosberg, the man in the field more desperate for miles than anyone else. He didn't make final qualifying, but all these laps saved earlier in the weekend will not go to waste, and he will now get 12 extra practice laps for Malaysia - a difficult track that he doesn't know at all. Sam Michael even went as far as to say that he'll probably have nine of them on Friday and three on Saturday!

He's not the only one, of course. Kimi Raikkonen and Ralf Schumacher have even more miles available, having failed to get through the first session, while the likes of David Coulthard and Jarno Trulli didn't make the top 10. Whether that benefit transfers into extra practice mileage, or gives the teams confidence to run higher revs a bit longer during the race, remains to be seen.

It's also worth noting that many of those who finished outside the points in Bahrain would have cut their revs and taken a lot less out of their engines than those racing hard at the front, including the Toyotas and the gearbox-troubled Rubens Barrichello. Don't forget that Giancarlo Fisichella and Jacques Villeneuve will have fresh engines, too, but unlike Felipe Massa and David Coulthard - who will get fresh engines with a penalty of dropping ten grid places - the Italian and Canadian will not be penalised, as they retired early from the race.

The fascinating thing will be how this all relates to the last third of a very tough race in Malaysia, where the V8s will be testing the outer limits of endurance...

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- The Autosport.com Team

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