[Neil Jones]

When it comes to the fastest loser qualifying from the Eliminator do they take the time that contender ran it in or if they started 1-2 seconds behind would their time be from when the round starts?

And related, here's the time in the first series where the Eliminator (in the old format, they changed it the following year) was literally a dead heat:
www.youtube.com 

Apparently the top scoring winners made the semi-finals in the first series, so both of the contenders made that because of the dead heat (they changed that as well). As it turned out neither of them went on to win the show.