Anyone else think the qualifying before these races needs revamped? Currently, everyone goes out at the same time. This causes a lot of traffic. There is a benefit to going out asap as you could potentially get an extra lap in before the time expires. There is also tire wear involved. I would agree this is quite realistic, but it's not ideal.
I had an instance at the Gr1 at Daytona where, despite me leaving as much of a gap as I could before starting the hot lap (as there is a line of cars behind me that I am not trying to mess up either), I caught up to him on the oval. He killed my lap as basically I ended up bump drafting him. Really frustrated me but the flip side is he's also trying to put in his fast lap so why should he yield? He shouldn't; he has the same right to the track that I do in this case.
So with the - typically - five minute quali session, you have an out lap that doesn't count (it'd be insane slow anyway), then you get maybe one or two laps of full pace in for your session. Issue is, everyone is trying to do the same thing so people can get bunched up. Plus there's tire wear to boot. So if you get held up on lap two, but get free for lap three, lap three is already compromised because your tires are more worn at this point.
IMO, everyone who's out for quali either needs to be ghosted or we all get our own track for 5 mins (similar to pre-race Daily race quali), that way we're not in each other's way during the quali laps. These Nations/Manu races are a time investment and it sucks when your race is severely compromised before it even starts. PD has already eliminated the slip and dirty air effects during quali, why not ghost?
Thoughts?
All i know from free practice is that it looks like sunrise or sunset with a few clouds. Will have to try out all the options in the weather and time settings until it looks about right.
