In your first race in Career or Championship, knock the difficulty to whichever suits your skill level**.
Set qualifying to "One-shot qualifying" when the race weekend starts.
Turn Damage off if you need to.
You will start a few corners before the start/finish line. As long as you finish ahead of the ghost, you will qualify in first place(pole position)
**For Novices I would either recommend starting as a Mercedes/Ferrari/Red Bull and having the difficulty no higher than Medium. Also, a Manor on Easy is at least 5 seconds a lap faster than Lewis Hamilton at Melbourne for more advanced drivers