F1 Manager 2023 Qualifying Tips: How to nail qualifying

Qualifying sounds easy - just score the fastest lap time and you’re on pole. However, there’s a lot more to qualifying in F1 Manager 2023 than just being fast. Thankfully, these F1 Manager 2023 qualifying tips will put you in the best position for race day.

From how to prepare your drivers to when to send your cars out on track, there’s a lot to think about in qualifying.

F1 Manager 2023 qualifying tips

The preparation for qualifying in F1 Manager 2023 starts in the first practice session of the weekend. It’s here that you start perfecting the setup of the car, as well as gaining valuable track acclimatisation for your drivers. Don’t forget if you’ve applied new parts to the car you’ll also need to get your drivers used to those too.

If you’re struggling to get the right setup for your cars, try our F1 Manager 2023 setup guide.

It’s also important to take note if you’re in a sprint weekend or not. Sprint weekends move qualifying to Fridays after FP1, significantly reducing your time to perfect the setup.

This may all sound trivial, but a major part of F1 Manager 2023 is driver confidence. With confidence affecting your driver’s ability to perform both in the race and in qualifying, you want to get them as confident as possible. A good car setup is the easiest way to gain confidence.

With practice out of the way, and hopefully a good car setup created, it’s time to head into qualifying itself.

Track timing

As we said above, a confident driver performs the best. If your driver is still struggling for confidence heading into qualifying, you may need to give them a little boost. Our qualifying confidence guide will help you max out your drivers, giving them a much better chance of qualifying.

The most important part of qualifying is timing. The last thing you want is to miss the chequered flag being slow to the line. You also want to avoid being caught out by any weather changes or yellow or red flags. If you can see rain is coming, you’ll want to avoid running on a wet track.

The best way to avoid weather is to get out early and set a ‘banker lap’. This guarantees a lap time on the board just in case the weather does take a turn for the worse. Feel free to send your drivers out on track straight away before the other drivers leave the garage.

If the rain does come, you can relax knowing no one will be able to beat your times, safely securing passage to the next stage of qualifying.

Once you have times on the board you can prepare for the real qualifying.

Setting the pace

The worst part of qualifying in Formula 1 is traffic on the track. With every driver competing for track space, it’s impossible to avoid cars impeding one another every now and then. In F1 Manager 2023, the best way to try and avoid this is to send your cars out once you see other cars hit the track.

Keep an eye on the track map, and as soon as you see cars emerging from the garages, send your drivers out. If you get the timing just right, there’ll be a nice gap for your drivers to slot into. This will allow them to set lap times without being impeded, whilst also getting a nice aerodynamic tow from the cars in front.

If you can delay sending your cars out just a little bit longer, you’ll also have the advantage of the cars in front improving the track grip for your drivers too. Just don’t leave it too long at the end of a session and risk missing the chequered flag.

Qualifying is a real gamble between waiting as long as possible for the optimum track conditions, whilst not waiting too long so as to compromise your chances of getting a good lap time. Always use the other cars to your advantage where you can, be it as a timer for when to hit the track or even as a means to shave off valuable time down the straights.

Some players have discovered that running two consecutive qualifying laps with no cooldown lap in between is the 'meta' for qualifying. This burns off fuel during the first lap, with the second setting the better lap time. This is a risk, as weighing down the car with extra fuel could prove detrimental when trying to run fast.

There's also the risk of falling out of sequence with the rest of the grid when running consecutive laps. Falling out of sequence will see the AI impede your cars and ruin your drivers’ lap times.

For more on F1 Manager 2023, check out our review and tips and tricks for beginners.