There’s a pattern at Qatar because the track layout and qualifying flow set drivers up to trip over each other.
Lusail has a long straight into a sequence of medium and high speed corners, and everyone wants to prep their tires and build a gap at the same spots. There’s no real slow sector where drivers can safely back off without blocking the racing line. When the field bunches up before the final corner, someone inevitably ends up in the way of a push lap.
Add the fact that track limits get messy here, so more laps get invalidated. Drivers then scramble for extra attempts, which packs the field even tighter. The result is a qualifying session where impeding is almost guaranteed because no one has anywhere to put the car without affecting someone else’s lap.
Qatar basically forces a traffic jam at the worst possible time, and teams haven’t found a clean workaround yet. I'm sure everyone is trying their best to be good sportsmen.
