How to Ace Qualifying

Don't just wing it - plan for qualifying and test for qualifying!

When qualifying sessions can set the grid for every heat and count for points for the final, then your whole race weekend can be destroyed by a bad qualifying session.

Officials are also trying their hardest to stop drivers messing around in qualifying sessions (looking for a tow or deliberately ruining other drivers laps) so the trend is towards super short sessions where 2 or 3 laps count. This makes every lap ultra-critical.

We were quickest on Friday! I don’t know where the pace went in qualy…

How many times have you heard this, or even found yourself bemoaning your luck in qualifying after showing so much promise in the previous day of practice? How could I be so quick all day then have nothing in qualifying???!!

If you are like the vast majority of drivers you spend all your practice time hammering round for ten minutes trying to match everyone else’s time, and that’s all you care about. Maybe your fastest lap comes on lap 9 of 10, but so long as it’s good you don’t worry that the fastest driver hit their best time on lap 4.

You’ve been setting your tyre pressures to produce your best time, which usually comes late on in the session, when everything has settled down and your focus is peaking.

You have tuned yourself and your kart to hit the sweet-spot for around lap 8 or 9. Trouble is qualifying lasts for 5 laps max!

You don’t stand a chance! On your qualifying hot lap you are still warming up, neither you or the kart is ready.

The solution is obvious, but very hard to apply because we all get dragged into blindly chasing lap times over 15 laps, so this takes discipline - but if you don’t conquer this you’re knackered.

Treat every test session you do as qualifying, until you become a master of short runs.

This means no more smashing round for 20 minutes on practice days aimlessly. It means give yourself a maximum number of laps to peak and then come in.

I recommend having a cold set of tyres ready and waiting to put on, then go back out if you want to make use of your time, then hit another 5 minute run.

Tune your kart purely to peak when needed inside that 5 minutes.

How to tune yourself for qualifying.

My favourite method for qualifying is to have a purpose and a plan for each lap knowing exactly the state your tyres will be in on each of those laps (from all the qualifying test runs you’ve done). Here’s an example:

Lap 1 - Out lap, aggressive tyre warming.

Lap 2 - Over-drive a bit for first half of lap, then go normal to feel the tyres balancing out nicely.

Lap 3 - Banker lap - hit your marks, put in a safe but good lap.

Lap 4 - Hot lap - hit your marks with no compromises, hit a perfect one.

Lap 5 - Bonus lap - go all in and try something extra. If it works happy days, if not, no big loss.

Compare this to a typical qualifying session:

Lap 1 - Out lap, I’ll just get round and not push too hard, I don’t want to make a mistake on cold tyres.

Lap 2 - Hmm, these tyres are still a bit cold.

Lap 3 - Tyres are still not on, they’ll be alright soon.

Lap 4 - I better push really hard now, wtf this idiot in front is screwing me. I’ll dive bomb them.

Lap 5 - FFS they are passing me back, whats wrong with people. Right I better put in a good lap now, send it big time. Oh, there’s the flag, well it wan’t my fault, it was their fault. I was quickest on Friday!!!

Thanks again

Terence