Qualifying Practice Program to Difficult?

I only just started My Team yesterday and also noticed that the qualifying program is obviously broken (which also means that the devs haven't beta-tested this, because oh boy is this obvious). I did a really decent lap and was 3 seconds off target. So I've basically experienced what you guys have experienced as well. Luckily, we can always finish the programm in quick practice, but that's only a workaround for something that is broken.

Honestly speaking is not a solution, but I feel my team progression is lightspeed fast I can get from the worst car (no comment on all interviews starting as the worst team 460 performance) to the best car overall 750-800 in 1 year (23 races, slightly more than one year if I play 16)

That made me invent the rule of completing only one practice program per race week (to get less bonus). I could then easily skip the qualification program (that is bugged and impossible). My goal was to get the best car after 4-5 years, as I like to fight for the middle position quite a lot. To achieve it, after a few tests, I found out I had to use all player stuff (RD - money - team xp - player xp) to reduce.

My rule so far is to enjoy MY TEAM.

- Interview - No comment to all
(starting performance between +/-460 as reference RedBull 1st performance 615-620)
- Difficult level 75
- Only complete one program per practice weekend
(you can select it strategically; I usually tend to do the one with the most Aerodynamic or Chassis, obviously not Qualif. practice)
- RD player - Reduced
- Money player - Reduced
- Xp player - Reduced
- XP Team - Reduced

Completed 1st season - performance level lower half (slightly better than the start. Actually, the first year is the hardest as you get less money because you have fewer adv., and with lower XP you don't get team lvl 15 that quickly)

Completed 2nd season - performance level top half (things start speeding up)

I am playing 3rd season and in the top 4 performance. By the end, I think I will be 2nd or maybe already 1st but by the end of the year, probably.

In the fourth season, I suspect I will get leadership, maybe not win them all because I sux at some tracks.

The fifth season is the last one. I think there is no really any reason to keep going. You practically dominate for me usually, it is the last season end of the game.

Then I will start again, this time with an entire realistic weekend (the first time I use 5 day race), and maybe bump one the difficulty to 79. This will take me busy for probably 1-2 months, but I will go down to 16 races per calendar. I feel 23 is a bit much. There are some circuits that I don't like at all, and it feels a little draggy.

Yeah, it is too difficult and has been for some time. I just started a season in MyTeam, AI 105, car ranked 10 in development for Bahrain. Qualy practice programme wants a 1:28.2 for 17th place. In Q1, a 1:28.2 is good enough for P1. P1 time is 1:30.something… Go figure…

@Apophis-STR, yes, I agree on 16 races being the sweet spot! And as much as it's intriguing a 10-season play, I find the range (that ultimately consists of fractions of seconds) that you gain or lose with performance scores of the team wouldn't scale sensibly over ten years. Probably, you would barely notice the difference, and my inconsistent skill would make it hard to feel it.

I would love a 9-12 year play if, every 3/4  years, we get to fully re-design the car with some hard reset of upgrades.

You would put some money away every year for future car projects, hire some mechanics with different characteristics, and direct the focus of the future car team in some interviews (similar to the first one at the end of the year). 

So practically, you reset cars every 3/4 years, and the new car is a result of the current car performance plus the money invested during the year in this project, the eng that you hired specifically for this task, and the interview you made each end of the year, plus some random factor (similar to success/fail of parts) - it would be nice to have different skins of the car to pick between 

That would keep everything fresh for a lil longer. It would be like restarting a career every 3/4 years. That is what I already do practically.

But I will try to start a new career with 16 races (full simulation) in parallel with the 23 races (5 laps race) I am halfway through, or maybe I should wait for the first couple of patch-updated ones so maybe they fix some stuff in the meanwhile.

The time gap (delta) shown during the qualifying programme might be a display error. I finished the program in purple even thought I was more than 2 seconds behind the displayed delta time. So the actual time target might be lower than displayed. I'll see if I can get a green or purple finish to the qualifying programme again despite the delta being displayed in red...

It's been broken for a few games and getting worse each year. It's basically impossible now if you're difficulty setting is anywhere near set sensibly for the other programs.