Why are my qualifying times so bad?

I've over rank 100 and I've beaten all the normal races.

However, I've noticed that in all the NPC races, I can never get anywhere close to the top 3 position from my qualifying times. I mostly end up dead last, then proceed to pass them all and end up first place in the final race.

The only time I can get first or second is if I race against another player where I have 60% win chance or higher.

Why is it that my qualifying time suck so bad in NPC races, but yet I can beat them in the actual race with no effort? (No nitro or KERS use.)

Mostly, it's because qualifying times don't take your parts or other abilities into account. Driver skills like Adrenaline and Drifter are not used, parts like Superchargers, or even your research buildings that up vehicle stats. Things like that are not used for qualifying times, so it looks like your performance is so bad.

For the most part, the qualifiers are not really helpful unless your vehicles are just barely better than your competition. But then, that's where KERS and Nitro come in as well.

You can improve your qualifier time by building the simulators, but the gain seems to be rather negligible.