Understanding a F1 Grand Prix… (Part 2)
With the first three practices, Formula One caravan covers an important and crucial part of the race. Another highly significant aspect of the race weekend is the press conference. As the teams usually gather at the venue on Thursdays, a formal press conference
takes place. This may give a lot of account regarding the form and expectations of the drivers and the teams.
Such press conferences are important in making the image and reputation of a team as well as its drivers. Moreover, the suitability of the car on the track and the team strategy might also get revealed during these conferences.
The drivers and higher managements of the teams gather on Thursday for the opening press conference and later, the second press conference takes place after the first two practices of Friday. The track, cars’ adjustability on the track, teams’ strategy,
drivers’ form and their fears and aspirations, thus a lot is discussed here.
Finally, on Saturday afternoon, after the third practice, the qualifying begins. Currently, as the teams are heading for the Korean Grand Prix, the event's qualifying is scheduled to take place on 23rd of October at 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. according to the Korean
time.
The qualifying is divided into three rounds. The first round sees all the 24 cars fleeing on the track for 20 minutes. As this round ends, the slowest seven cars leave the track, settling themselves at the last seven places on the grid for Sunday.
The first round is followed by a break of seven minutes as the remaining 17 cars prepare for the 2nd round. This goes for another 15 minutes, and as it ends, 7 more cars leave the track, fixing their places between 11 to18 on the grid.
With this, the 10 fastest cars are left behind that battle primarily for the pole position as that makes a lot of impact on their ultimate race result. The final 10-minute session could become exciting and thrilling as the intense battle of the cars take
place.
One might say that the race actually begins with the qualifying as the rivalry and the heat of the race is equally witnessed here as well. Whosoever stands out as the fastest man in the qualifying wins the ‘Pole Position’, meaning that he would start the
race from the foremost place on the grid.
The qualifying is followed by the post-qualifying press conference that usually takes place on late Saturday afternoon and then the final tug of points begins on Sunday morning.
Moreover, to bring further excitement and thrill to the sport, the system of points’ distribution on the race day has been changed. FIA came up with a new pattern last year, which was implemented at the start of this season.
Until last year, only the top eight racers scored points at the end of the day. Maximum points given for a race were 10 while the second and third places on the podium claimed 8 and 6 points respectively.
The later five drivers got points equal to their position in the race from 5 to 1. But now, the new system rewards the top drivers in each Grand Prix as 25, 18, 15, 12, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 1, according to their race position in descending order. With this system,
every race of the season has become more exciting while the season itself has turned to be more unpredictable.
At present, the top five racers of the season Mark Webber, Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button stand at just a difference of 31 points between them. The chances of all the top drivers stay the same as one race win by any one
of them can actually turn the tables completely.
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