Surrendering grid position

A team may accept a lower grid position than possible. Basically teams would do so in one of two situations:

• _ The race team decides that its best race strategy involves a heavy fuel load and that the disadvantage a heavy load brings in qualifying will be more than made up for during the race. This strategy is feasible only at tracks where overtaking isn’t too difficult.
• _ A driver has qualified so badly that the team reasons it would be better to start him from the pit lane. Opting for a pit lane start after all

the others have reached the first corner allows the team the option of changing its fuel load – something that it can’t do if it starts from the grid. If everyone else had opted for a two fuel stops so that their cars were lighter during qualifying, going for one fuel stop is theoretically the quickest way to complete the race and could put you on a better strategy than everyone else. Of course, the benefit of starting from pit lane could outweigh that of starting from the grid only if you had qualified a long way down the grid and had little to lose.