Akresna Circuit Paddock, Archer Performance briefing room
"Alright gentlemen, decent result in practice, at most three tenths away from the lead. We take those. Anything you would like to change setup wise heading into qualifying?"
"The car feels a little too oversteery between 8 and 13. It just takes too long to set and allow me to go full throttle."
"Noted Pierre. We can probably tweak the rear suspension a little, but we have to be careful to let the aero work. Luke anything to had?"
"The car feels balanced but a quicker steering would be nice. Any changes to the ratio possible?"
"Sure thing we will look into it. Now go rest up and we will see both of you for qualifying."
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Pierre-Louis was on his exercise bike when he got the call to get ready to jump in the car. There is always uncertainty when starting qualifying. Did your changes work or are you stuck in parc fermé with a lazy car? Did your opponents unlock more performance? At the end of the day though, qualifying puts it all in the hands of the driver. As he strapped in the car, he tried to remember all the intricacies of the track. With 20 corners all unique and challenging, the circuit was certainly one of the toughest he had driven on. Pushing the car to the limit also came with the ever looming track limits. Don't push them enough and a good lap can turn into a slow one, but push them too far and you will be lucky if all you get is your lap being deleted.
"Alright Pierre. Radio check. 30 seconds to session start. Remember track is long enough to find space, so no need to battle in qualifying."
And with that the start up sequenced commenced bringing the engines to life once more. Twenty seven cars found their way onto the track screaming into the Aurun countryside.
"We'll get about two or three push laps. Be mindful of traffic, but most of all drive fast", the voice said on the radio.
As the tires warmed up and he approached the line for his first flying lap, he hoped the changes had worked, but as arrived at turn 1, Valantov, the car felt like it didn't want to turn at all.
"Geoff, what is this? I missed the apex by a mile."
"Copy, we will analyse the data and discuss it later, now concentrate on putting in a lap."
The story repeated itself throughout the lap. Pierre-Louis would use the same markers he used in practice but the car would just understeer. With a disappointing lap, he brought the car back to the pits where he got even more bad news.
"Pierre, we are trying to save a set of tires for the race. Think you can go back out on the same set?"
He looked back at them in shock and could not find any words beside a grunt. In the back of his mind though, the young drivers had seen this type of thing before. When he first showed promise in karting, his dad would setup challenges for him to race with an handicap compared to other drivers to build his skills.
Pierre-Louis went out on the same set for a last attempt to get out of Q1 but the tires were not able to perform. Trying to overcome the understeer, Pierre had used so much steering lock that he had burned the front tires off only increasing the issues. Disgruntled, the 21 year old pulled off into the pits early. Mechanics rushed to the car, but the driver waved them away telling them nothing is broken. For his engineer, he had but three words: "Where is dad?"
"Up in the spotters nest"
Pierre ran through the paddock before getting stopped by a security guard. "Do you have credentials to go up there?", he asked. "Does this not look like credentials enough?", Pierre responded pointing to his racing suit.
He did not time his run up the flights of stairs but in retrospect, Pierre figured it might have been a record of some kind. But at the time he had other things in mind. Exhausted and winded, he locked eyes with his father in the viewing gallery overlooking parts of the circuit.
"I am tired of your games. Mind telling me what you did to my car?"
"All in due time, but I want you to look at this car that is coming up and tell me what you see."
"I see a car that freaking turns. I don't know. Are they running more front wing?"
"No, you see, they are using the pedals to turn the car. You have been used to cars that didn't need much trail braking and have gotten sloppy at it. So I tweaked the differential before qualifying so you can't coast through corners anymore."
"HUH!", Pierre screamed, drawing the attention of the other team representatives present. "And you couldn't tell me that while looking at data like a normal person? I'm going back to the hotel I need space."
