What to Know About question of the Week: What’s Your Favorite Qualifying Moment?—WINNER’S UPDATE
WINNER’S ANNOUNCEMENT:
We’re back to announce the winner for our Question of the Week, where our victor will accept a $25 credit for a hat or T-shirt from the BaT Gear Store and the acclaim of their peers.
This week, we asked: What’s your favorite qualifying moment?
Thanks to everyone who participated! Two nominations were deadlocked for pole position this week: Michael Schumacher’s 2006 infamous “parking” job at Monaco and Aryton Senna’s qualifying lap at the 1988 Monaco Grand Prix. So we turned to the thumbs to determine our winner, and with a cumulative 11 likes, this week’s winning nomination is Senna’s Monaco GP qualifying run! BaT member @Newport_Pagnell was the first to it, but seeing as he’s recently won QotW, we’re awarding the prize to the next in line—@BloodyHell:
You just had to be there to witness Aryton Senna’s mythic performance. No, really—apparently not one broadcast fully captured the iconic qualifying lap at the 1988 Monaco GP, where Senna was 1.427 seconds quicker than his teammate Alain Prost in the same car. It’s been dubbed as one of F1’s greatest qualifying laps, and Senna described the whole thing as “no longer driving conscious.”
Congratulations, BloodyHell. Be sure to check your email to claim the prize. Now, let’s take a look at some other popular nominations from this week’s discussion thread, beginning with @IsAlwaystheAnswer‘s controversial pick:
Monaco 2006 Michael Schumacher’s and the most analyzed “parking job” in Formula 1, “Totally Accidental” of course….sure it was.
Image: ANNE CHRISTINE POUJOULAT/AFP via Getty Images via F1 Oversteer
Schumacher had just set the fastest qualifying lap time and had the pole. Then he delivered a masterclass in creative interpretation of racecraft. With qualifying winding down and everyone else gearing up for their final attempts to take the pole, Schumacher arrives at La Rascasse hairpin, and suddenly decides: “You know what this corner needs? Me. Parked. Right here across the racing line.” He locked up and then gently positioned his Ferrari across the track with all the subtlety of being double-parked in Midtown Manhattan on Friday afternoon, 4:30PM “I’ll only be a minute.” Yellow flags flew, ruining everyone else’s laps. “Wow, what an unfortunate and completely unforeseeable mishap. Gosh. Darn.” Says Michael.
The stewards watched the replay, paused, rewound, squinted, probably laughed, and then delivered their verdict: “Yeah, Michael… we were born yesterday, but it was early yesterday.” “Nice try, buddy.” Pole position? Nope. His new starting spot was back of the grid.
Typical Schumacher selectively ethical moment.
“Rick Mears was my favorite Indy car driver, back in 1991 he qualified for the pole a record sixth time in a backup car with a broken foot he suffered after crashing the primary car that year.”
He also set a new track record to boot. All we can think of is ouch—the agony of a broken foot.
“Obtaining my Driver’s License at age 16!”
““Awesome Bill from Dawsonville” Elliott’s still to this day record restrictor-plate free qualifying lap speed of 212.809-mph set at Talladega in 1987.”
“I really like Smokey Yunick for all of the awesome ideas he tried. One being the “mystery motor” in a ’63 Impala that ran for the qualification of the Daytona 500. That 427 was 5-10 mph faster than everyone else, so of course NASCAR forced a change before the race.”
The 427 “Mystery Motor” was certainly iconic, and we wrote about it in April’s 4/27 big block feature—check it out!
“1991 Indy 500 Bump day Qualifying and Willy T. Ribbs makes it into the race at the last minute!
“Qualifying for a first time home buyer’s mortgage. Because it meant finally having a garage. :)”
That’s it for this week’s Question of the Week! Thanks to everyone who participated, and congratulations once again to our winner, BloodyHell. We’ll be back with a new question soon.
ORIGINAL POST:
Welcome to the BaT Question of the Week! For those unfamiliar, here are the rules: we ask an automotive-themed question, and the author of our favorite answer from the comments is awarded a $25 credit to the BaT Gear Store.
Qualifying wrapped up on the 110th running of the Indy 500, and Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou is sitting on pole position for the second time in his career. Of course, nearly every major motorsport series has some form of qualifying session, and fighting to start ahead of the pack on race day has led to no shortage of epic moments over the years, from dramatic head-to-head duels to baffling moments that leave you scratchin’ your noggin. So this week we’re challenging you to tell us about your favorite laps from among the myriad of racing series out there:
What’s your favorite qualifying moment?
Drop your answer in the comments, and leave a thumbs-up to any nominations that grab your attention. We’ll announce the winner on Monday.
“As @Newport_Pagnell already correctly answered…
Senna
1988
Monaco
Inarguably the greatest driver in F1 history doing what only he could do..”
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BloodyHell commented on Question of the Week: What's Your Favorite Qualifying Moment?—WINNER’S UPDATE