Awright, we’re back in the cars, even if it is “only” qualifying.

Qualifying is one of those weird things in racing, where it’s a necessary thing for safety, by not putting the fastest cars in the middle or back of the pack, to minimize dangerous overtaking;

And qualifying is also not necessarily the best way to measure which is the fastest car over the full length of the race, because they’re only measuring speed over a single lap.

Now what do I mean by that: For example, you can prepare special purpose single-use engines, tyres and other components to optimize this single qualifying lap. For example, you can swap in a lighter hollowed out engine block to save weight, or one that’s made of lighter materials and components that wouldn’t last the length of the full race, but will certainly do the job on a single lap.

Formula 1 has added rules over the years to stop teams from “cheating” in this manner, e.g. they changed the rules to disallow “qualifying engines” starting in 2004, forced teams to use the same engines for multiple races and qualifications, etc, etc. but teams keep coming up with new ways to get around the rules.

I’m not sure how MFG restricts its competitors, or maybe they put limits on by just not awarding a whole lot of prize money, so ridiculously expensive “creative engineering” isn’t worthwhile.

@rikka@ani.social

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