Fuel Ban for 2010…and blankets too
April 30, 2009 by Negative Camber
Filed under Parc Fermé
So the FIA have decided that a ban on refueling for the 2010 season is a good idea but to be fair, I believe most of the teams agreed with this as well. Now I may be the only human alive that likes refueling during a race and you could accuse me of liking something as random as a “managed tire” program, which I hate, but the refueling added an element of strategy that I personally enjoyed. Many could argue that the Tire Management or the skip-a-step tire strategy is equally adding an element of strategy as well. Fair enough, perhaps I have become jaded to the refueling concept and the tire management program is new and unsettling for me. But my mind still hates the Managed Tire program and likes refueling…I don’t know, you do the math.
“It was confirmed that from 2010, refuelling during a race will be forbidden in order to save the costs of transporting refuelling equipment and increase the incentive for engine builders to improve fuel economy (to save weight),”
I know that critics, like myself, would argue that the standardized refueling nozzle has created more gaffs and affected more race outcomes that it should and you would be right in saying that. But how much fun was it for Grace to watch Felipe drag the entire refueling rig down pitlane? That alone is worth the refueling option to remain in F1. Also, why have a mandated Managed Tire program to add artificial racing “strategery” if you are suggesting that refueling is the very same thing? Should we not look at both situations as elements that artificially affect the outcome of a race and be more diligent in our fact finding mission to consider the implications of mandating tire changes but not allowing for light, medium and heavy fuel loads?
To me, every team will know that all cars are heavy for the whole race. I can see if this refueling ban was coupled with a “green” program that mandated a limited fuel-flow system and forced the teams to engineer new fuel systems that maximized minimum consumption with equal power output. That would make sense but to mandate the use of two completely different tire compounds but eliminate the refueling seems even more odd to me. why not just ban tire changes and refueling and let the cars run head-to-head for the all out fastest car? If we eliminate the element of strategy or mishap; then perhaps we have a more accurate measurement of the cars and more exciting racing. Then again, I think the element of surprise (dragging a fuel rig down pitlane) has a certain jolliness to it that can only be met with amusement and bemusement; the tire ordeal is just confusing.
As for blankets? yeah, those are gone too. Except other means of heating are fine. Like the boxes out back that heat the entire wheel and tire that Ferrari use?
So what do you think? Should we ban refueling? Does it add or take away form the series? Keeping the tire debacle as the only element of strategy really a good thing?
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I like refueling to. How about just using a standardized can for refueling? Also, how will they qualify?
I think this could be the real “green” initiative of Formula 1 and a technological advance that could trickle down to our regular road cars. In an F1 race, there could be a real benefit to having an engine that was 10% or even 20% more fuel efficient.
Is anyone on here knowledgeable enough to know how much weight a fully fueled F1 car would carry and what kind of weight savings could be had by running a more efficient engine?
I’m fine with the refueling ban. Maybe taking away that aspect will make drivers more focused on earning a pass on the track, rather than hoping they gain position as a result of pit strategy. Pitting for tires will add a new element of surprise, since that won’t be predicated on the need for fuel, which everyone had predicted — more or less — in advance
Can we ban Bernie and Max from the races too?
Just a thought.
CG :-D
Couldn’t care less about it. I suppose it’s interesting and useful that it could drive innovation in fuel efficiency. We could all benefit from that.
Cost cutting meh.
If i remember rightly it was only introduced for safety in the fist place, I assume we have the safety of so much fuel sorted now? Maybe they’ll just add more to the car and have the driver sit in a bath tub of it again, there must be rules against that right?.
I have several issues with it though.
First it’s yet more changes and so any changes all the time actually costs a ton. Wholesale innovation forced by multiple and constant rule changes costs millions.
Another thing is I would welcome it. I mean motor racing shouldn’t need fuel stops to make it interesting. But there’s no point if you still have tyre changes, other than forced changes. It should be possible to run from start to finish without a stop then people would have to pass on track. It would force the designers hands and driver hands.
I know most wouldn’t agree but I think there’s plenty of race craft and strategy on track to keep it interesting in other ways than just passes. You see it in plenty of motorsports.
I had other moans and groans but I’ve forgotten what now
Kind of my point too Paul. Why keep tire changes then? What’s the point?
Ahh, but by the time the rulebook is official for 2010, the FIA will mandate that teams run 3 different compounds during a race. Each compound will be hugely different than the others. Alonso’s strategy will be to qualify on the very softest and tear out from the start in such a mind numbing rooster tail of tire debris that all competitors will be momentarily blinded by the black rubber in the air.
The tire warmers thing makes no sense to me. Seems to me they do have an obvious beneift, and if your not going to ban ALL tire warmiong devices ..why bother. Refueling does add a bit of drama to the race but so do great big fireballs. If they could make refueling safe for the guys on pit road and redesign the crappy rig i think it would be great to keep
My opinion on refueling is that it should have been banned a LONG time ago. I believe there are a couple of crew that would agree as they saw the other end of the snapped hose go flying by their heads. The fires that erupted in the past have not gone away completely….minimized of course by the technology. Fuel cells are safer than they have ever been. A severe crash can still squeeze a cell to the point of rupture…
Tires have to be shipped regardless. You HAVE to have tires due to flat spots, spins, slides, punctures etc. Shipping fuel and refueling rigs is just stupid. But they HAVE to ship something….cant run the whole weekend on a single tank of fuel now can you? So they’ll have ONE fuel rig instead of two. So they save some money there. Cant lay off the fueling guys….cause they still need fueled…so no savings there…
I think the refueling ban makes economic sense.
The blankets it’s just stupid because people will spend to create a novel way to achieve the same result.
The way the refueling ban works to improve fuel economy requires a specific amount of fuel to be predetermined pre-race. In the 80’s it was 220 lt. i seem to remember, in peak turbo era.
And I might be a little harsh on this. I know the teams would like it gone just for the hassle and safety but perhaps banning refueling will actually drive new ways to use fuel more efficiently or so Max may suggest. That does translate to road cars so I may be out of bounds on my criticism…I still like it though. :)
You’re not out of bounds in your criticism as this is ANOTHER CHANGE… Can we please string a few seasons together with relatively similar rules… Simply not changing anything for a few seasons would be the biggest cost saver the series could undergo…
Can we go back to providing specifications for building race cars that don’t have specific outcome altering objectives in mind?
The Overtaking Working Group
The Managed Tire Program
Two tiers of teams
A ban on fueling
The arguement could be made that by relaxing the rules but keeping them constant for a few years, you would cultivate inovation and save money vs. the current environment where everything is heavily regulated and constantly changing. The FOTA should put together their own working group with the objective of calculating how much the teams would have spent between 2005 and now, had the rules stayed similar, vs. what was actually spent trying to keep up with these half cocked changes.
The cars should be required to run on one set of tyres. Imagine that! Tyres that last!
Re-fuelling should be allowed but not compulsory, and all the cars would be re-fuelled at one fuel pump which would be manned by a young lady who’s allowed to text and phone her friends any time she wants. Imagine the excitement as Alonso angrily scrambles out of his car to fuel himself as she nonchalantly chats to a friend and files her nails. Of course the driver behind would be overheating as he waves his fists and shouts at Alonso AND the attendant.
How many cars can carry a race length of fuel at this moment.. I suspect this will be just another excuse to move people into the latest model.
Has anyone had experience of that kind of racing where you start at the beginning and race to the end? It’s really quite fun and straightforward.
LMAO!! HHAHAHAA! Nice One! =D
Here was my wife’s reaction:
F1 is like playing a board game with baroque rules, and your opponent has played before so you are kind of relying on him/her to guide you through it, only the opponent keeps “remembering” and “looking up” rules as different situations arise, and you have no choice but to believe them and go along with it.
Actually, it kind of sounds like an F1D game I might have played once.
Sounds like your wife has it sized up. I don’t totally agree but I can see where she’s coming from. I welcome the no-fuel stop rule. The tyre ruling has me on the fence… Gilles Villeneuve would have just run the supersofts to the canvas…and run the prime once he was down to three wheels. :)For me he won every race (assuming you won for entertainment value)..forgive the digression.
No blankets sounds like we will see some entertaining out laps.
Hey, are you saying that I am just as reliable a rules enforcer as the FIA?
LOL. Yes!
You know, I could fine you for bringing Formula D into disrepute. But given the change in culture at F1B (adding Mark and Andy), I think I will make it a suspended 3 race ban. But don’t let me catch you knocking IndyCar, or I might have to flex the old arbitrary hand of justice.
You know, a combo of one tank of fuel and one set of tires really might be the greenest rules the FIA could produce.
Imagine engines that perform and get 100 MPG.
Imagine tires that least for 100,000 miles.
Right now, all we’ve gotten from F1 is those danged flappy paddle gear boxes, which no one likes.
How will this save money?
It’s going to take millions of $$$ to redevelop cars to carry more fuel to make race distance… needless to say cars will be heavier requiring more power to drive them?
No sense in this at all…. unless I’m missing something?
Dave, never assume you’re missing something when confused about F1…chances are you are spot on and it is just more of Max’s pragmatic solutions to an immediate situation that results in the exact opposite of the desired effect. :)
Oh, come on now, NC. Seriously? Name one “pragmatic solution” of Max’s that has resulted in the exact opposite of the intended effect.
Besides the new aero for this year (and the super diffuser); KERS; refueling ban for 2010… :)
I am really late on this one, but bring in smaller fuel tanks, max the number of refuelling a team is entitle with seconds as penalty, so you get the drama of refuelling and more investigation into more efficient fuel management…….
More fuel greater fire risk on impact. Want to make F1 green, limit total fuel use, allow as many stops to refuel as team wants.
I am in the minority here Don but I think re-fueling is an interesting way to change strategy in the race and adds an element of unknown. I know the dangers of refueling but as Don points out, there are good reasons to avoid massive fuel loads on cars as well. Good points Don.
Who knows about costs to says teams will save money by avoiding shipping the fuel rigs and related stuff? I think the freight a lot more weight on useless things…Flav is right in several exotic paddock things….the problem he’s hard to understand.
I not 100% sure about fuel ban…but if not too long ago, less safe racecars and gutsy drivers were able to do it on longer grand prix why not now?
I still think the more you try to save money or improve the show by banning and regulating and playing with the sport’s gadgets, the more you spend and failed to make it more interesting. F1 needs a more flexible ruling and encourage the teams to save thru innovation…Maybe NC is right about fuel banning..and teams will try to become more efficient…but a lot of things have to be change on the cars suspension and chassis to allow again such big amoount of ….petrol
No re-fuel puts more weight on the cars. Greater risk of accidents at higher speeds with all that extra weight to manage. Races will be slower. I’m for more speed. Good luck with the fuel efficiency thought with cars that accelerate as fast as f1. All these rule changes all the time. It is a very dangerous sport that needs to make it safe for drivers. Having more fuel on board into the first turn is asking for a problem.
Modern F1 drivers managed race-distance fuel for 43 years before pit stops became mandatory. It was technology (fuel cells, impact zones, crash testing) that made the sport safer not refueling.
Yes, more fuel on board was dangerous in the ’60’s, and the ‘64 Indy 500 is probably the most frightening example of the consequences. Yet by the late ’80s early ’90s race care design got to the point where more fuel on board did not equate to less safety.
No more refueling. I think it’s exciting for race laps to get progressively faster as the race goes on. Plus different handling characteristics and driving styles means that certain drivers will be comparatively faster in different segments of the race. Car setup also becomes more of an art since compromise is necessary due to the dramatic difference in weight from green to checkers (aka, lights out to checkers). The driver will have more influence on the outcome of races with no refueling.
And it is a mistake to think that strategy has less of a role now that fuel stops are no longer. Less number crunching and computerized simulations on the pit wall, but strategy just the same.
Check out Spa ‘93 for a example of one of the last great races prior to the refueling era. Hill, Prost, Schumacher, and Senna without any “fuel-adjusted” B.S. to mix things up.
I completely agree with JD, the ability of the driver to set up the car for qualifing (i’m really happy the true pole position fight is back) and for all the race will emerge without refuelling.
we’ll see races with huge recovery at ht end if somebody is smooth with the tyres and the car, wich will be completely different from the star to the end. i’m realy excited and courious to see how young drivers can manage this type of races, instead of going flat out all the time regardless of the car or of the tires..
but if we want to have more overtakes, i’ll suggest a ban for carbon-brakes.
With this brakes every driver brake at the same point, and the best in braking the car cannot overtake as they did in the 70es and the first 80es..
It would also a cost cutting measure coming back to iron brakes and surely we’ll have more overtaking..
For the car setup to be changed between quali and race, don’t the rules have to be changed? Or should I have read this full page?
I agree the teams should go to steel brakes… The longer the braking zine the more distance there is for overtaking.
No fuel stops and limiting tyre advantage should bring F1 back closer to the days of Jim C and G hill. No bad thing