38 How are the qualifying days organised ? (Indy 500)
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This article is from the Motorsport FAQ, by A H Henry bspahh@midge.bath.ac.uk with numerous contributions by others.
38 How are the qualifying days organised ? (Indy 500)
A run consists of each car running alone on the circuit for one or
two warm-up laps followed by four timed laps, over which the average
qualifying speed is calculated.
Each car can only complete the four timed laps once. During a
qualifying run, there is a team member positioned along the pit wall
who carries a yellow flag. At any time during the qualifying run,
that team member may stop the qualifying attempt by waving a yellow
flag (this is called waving off the attempt), indicating that the
team does not wish to accept that qualifying attempt. Once the car
takes the checkered flag at the end of the 4 timed laps, that's it.
The car has qualified with that particular run's average speed. It
can make no more qualifying attempts.
Waving off a qualifying attempt during the warm-up laps carries no
penalty, but you can only take the green flag that starts the timed
laps 3 times. You can wave off an attempt after the green flag flies
only twice. If you wave off during the timed laps on your third
attempt, that's it, and you get no more attempts to qualify.
The night before each day's qualifying, the teams that wish to
qualify cars the next day register their car numbers with the
officials, who then determine the initial order of qualifying
attempts for that day by lottery. On the qualifying day, they go once
through that order. When a car's number comes up, the team must
either make a qualifying attempt then and there, or step out of the
qualifying line. Qualifying attempts are made until the gun sounds at
6:00 pm. If they didn't get all the way through the initial order,
they do the rest of the order first thing next day, but those who
qualify in this way are grouped with the previous day's qualifiers
(thus, every car gets one shot at qualifying on any particular day).
If the officials get all the way through the lottery order and it's
not 6:00 pm yet, qualifying is thrown open and any not-yet-qualified
car can make an attempt by presenting itself at the line.
So each of the 4 days, they hold the lottery, go through the
lottery order, then comes free qualifying where any car can present
at the line and make an attempt, until 6:00 pm. If a car is rolling
before the 6:00 pm final gun, it is allowed to finish it's
qualification run. The car can be starting its warm-up laps too, it
only has to be rolling away from the inspection area when the gun
sounds.
Before a qualifying run can be made, the car must be inspected to
check that it meets all the rules. It takes only a few minutes for
this to be completed but it can yield a bit of drama just before 6:00
pm on Bubble Day. A line usually forms at the tech inspection area at
this time.
If a car's qualification attempt is interrupted by the track
officials to clear up debris, the car is allowed to refuel and move
to head of the technical inspection line to try again without an
attempt being charged to it.
If a driver wishes to qualify a different car (let's say that
Adrian Fernandez qualifies his backup car, but discovers that his
primary is running 10 mph faster, for example), then that driver must
withdraw his/her current car from the field, or let another driver
drive it. If a car is withdrawn, it may not attempt to requalify.
If a car has qualified, the engine cannot be changed for one of
another make. You'd have to requalify in a completely different
chassis with a new engine make
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