This is a frustrating problem for career mode players on F1 23, where they’re finding that the Qualifying Simulation program that can sometimes be run in practice sessions is basically impossible to beat, no matter how good a lap you do. You can be given a target time that can be 2-3 seconds faster than anything even the best player could achieve.

It’s basically impossible to pass the program, and so you lose out on resources points. What’s going on here? Why are the Qualifying programmes sometimes impossible to pass in practice at some races?

The practice qualifying programs being impossible to beat is a bug in the F1 23 game, and players are still awaiting a complete fix despite the 1.08 patch partially addressing it. Simulating the practice sessions can sometimes allow players to pass the program.

This is one of the frustrations frequently voiced by F1 game fans and players – it’s the same bugs that seem to keep appearing year after year in the Codemaster/EA F1 games. I remember this being in F1 22, and it was possibly in F1 2021 as well, though I can’t remember for sure.

They sometimes get patched in that game, but don’t really get fixed at a core code level, hence they often reappear on the next year’s game. And on the new Qatar and Las Vegas tracks, some players are finding that ALL the practice programs (not just Qualifying) are impossible to beat.

Has The Problem Been Fixed?

This problem has been partially, but not totally, resolved up to and including the 1.09 update of August 2023.

The 1.08 update from EA that dropped in July 2023 specifically lists this in the patch notes:

“Fixed an issue where Qualifying Practice Programmes would be much harder than other programs in Career”.

And since that patch dropped, I have noticed some improvement. Some of the Practice Qualifying programmes are easier to beat and set you more realistic target lap times that you can actually achieve.

But on some tracks, I’ve noticed the same problem is still there, with the Qualifying program being impossible to beat, with target times way off what anyone could hope to achieve.

Therefore the current updates have only fixed the problem on some tracks, not all, and a full fix is still needed to make all the practice programmes passable on all tracks (the problem of ALL the Qatar and Las Vegas programmes being very difficult/impossible still also remains even after patch 1.09).

Some Possible Ways Around This Problem

The coding on these practice programs is all over the place, and sometimes there are ways around this problem. If you’re clever about how and when you do Qualifying practice programs, you can sometimes beat the bugs in the game and pass the programs when everything on screen says you should fail it.

Here are some things to try:

• Lower difficulty – Pretty obvious solution, but even this sometimes doesn’t work and the delta remains impossible to beat. However, you can change the AI level before and between practice sessions and see if it makes it easier.
• Try in Wet – If you get a wet practice session, try doing the Quali program in that instead, and raising the wings. I’ve found I can sometimes pass the programs in the wet when I had no chance in the dry.
• Try early on in Practice 1 – I also sometimes found that if you don’t wait until P2/P3 like you normally would, and just do the Quali program early on in P1, it’s sometimes easier to beat and you can pass it. Not always though
• Simulate – If the target time you’re given is literally impossible to beat, there’s on option to Simulate the program on the Practice program menu, which at least gives you a chance of passing it and getting some Resource Points. It’s like a roll of the dice – sometimes it’ll give you a pass on some programmes so you at least get some points when you’d have no chance driving the cars for real.