Do you want Refueling back?

[Raptor22]

Keep refuellin banned. We had some of the best racing in a period where there was no refuelling i.e 1984 to 1993.

don't fix the symptom, fix the desease.

[manchild]

So that means that the only ovrtaking will be in the first corner then we can all go do something else on a Sunday afternoon? No chance.

F1 races where tyres last the whole race will only work if the cars are slowed down, braking efficeny is reduced and downforce is reduced. We might get some overtaking then. As it stands the only overtaking is artificial through pitstops or a driver having tyre problems.

Check 80s, early 90s seasons. Barn doors @ the back, 2m wide cars, CF discs and pads, huge diffusers, flat bottom, wide slicks, seq. gearboxes - cars extremely fast... if it worked than, no reason why it wouldn't work now.

[andrew]

Big difference is the speed and braking efficency. But comparing cars from different technical regs is like comparing apple and oranages. It can't be done acurately.

[ringo]

I think some of you are glorifying the past a little too much.
Look on the relative pace of the cars, and also the differences in technology among the teams and then you'll see why what worked then wont work now.

The idea that the racing was better could also be delusions of grandeur. Things always look much better, or more hardcore when we look back.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo[/youtube]

I think the highlight reels of the past bring back the good times, when in reality the good times may well be few and far between.

Judging from this decade alone, where the technology and competition were closest amongst the teams, I much preffered refuelling.

2010 leaves much to be desired for racing. Not much hot pursuits this year like the past couple years.

[segedunum]

Errrrrr, because that's exactly what happened to make refuelling more 'exciting'. Yes I know it's possible to have refuelling and low fuel qualifying........we had it and it was got rid of to avoid the fastest car qualifying on pole and simply short filling to maintain track position, turning every race into a total snorefest.

Something must be wrong with your memories. When we had low fuel qualy and refuelling the cars had to run as long as possible on track. The guy that pitted last usually won because he could set fast laps with low fuel. You should really think more about race strategies before arguing against refuelling here.

No, there's nothing wrong with my memory of straight low fuel qualifying and refuelling in the race. The car on pole could dictate and respond to anything that happened - including running longer and then short filling to ensure they got out and maintained track position. That was the standard race strategy.

Cars behind had to try and do something 'different', which they just weren't able to do with refuelling in the way that so many people seem to think. The variables simply weren't there, and the biggest unknown variable over the decades has been tyres.

[gridwalker]

Well, we are all agreed that this is what we want to see :

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsUD0yOEE7I[/youtube]

The problem is how to best achieve it.

That video contains overtaking maneuvres from both the days of refuelling and running with a full fuel load. Personally, I still think that the racing was better before refuelling was reintroduced, but that is just my personal opinion.

As we have seen, current regulations make ON TRACK passing as rare as rocking horse poo, but the amount of fuel in the car doesn't really appear to make a massive amount of difference to whether someone's going to dive up the inside.

The fuel in the back of the car is the least of our worries & focussing on what happens in the pits is just going to lead fans to neglecting the real issue : why cars can't get past each other on track.

Whether you are for or against refuelling, we should be united in looking at the REAL problem. Pulling in for a top-up shouldn't be your only option for swapping around the running order.

[ringo]

@ seg. How could the variables not be there when refueling is a variable in itself?

The car on pole could dictate and respond to anything that happened - including running longer and then short filling to ensure they got out and maintained track position. That was the standard race strategy.

Look on Hungary this year with the redbull. The fastest car always dictates the strategy. Mark webber made an theoretically inferior strategy work, just by virtue of being faster than everyone else.
The exact same thing you mentioned here can be done without refueling, only with less variables.
Fuel weight is no longer an issue. We overestimated the effect of fuel efficiency this year, the fuel factor is completely eliminated.
The only variables we have now is tyre degradation, and by next year teams should have enough data from the tracks to all basically have the same perfromance from the tyres, thus eliminating that factor as well.
What we'll have in abundance next year are races like bahrain, brasil, and abudhabi.
All these races were pretty eventful with refuelling and the cars were less competitive than now.

[Richard]

Manchild - you also need to factor in reliability. Cars in the olden days fell apart a lot more often, races were often about attrition.

We now have cars that never run out of fuel, bit rarely fall off, drivers rarely have to battle with mechanical issues nowadays

Numbers of retirements in a season:
1984: 54%
1989: 51%
1999: 45%
2003: 32%
2006: 30%
2008: 24%
2009: 20%

viewtopic.php?p=128058#p128058

[segedunum]

@ seg. How could the variables not be there when refueling is a variable in itself?

When there is a standard set of strategy choices as to where you pit to get through the race in the fastest time all that you see is variations on a theme. The team in front always knew the optimal time to stop and could react to anyone that tried to do anything different. That's is why we got amendments like qualifying fuel being carried into the race but that simply resulted in a different set of knowns. Refuelling simply turned out not to be a variable at all. It was just a means for the car and driver in front to stay ahead more often than it being a means to gain positions.

Look at 2005 as an example. Although we had two tyre manufacturers cars had to use one set of tyres for the whole race and we instantly saw more switches in positions and odd races. The tyres became a massive variable, and as we saw in Canada this year. Although refuelling was still there and teams had to come in to pit, that's all refuelling was good for and not where the big unknowns were. The big unknowns were in how a car and a driver could preserve their tyres and how fast they would be at various points in a race making it more of a lottery when to pit. With refuelling, a fresh set of tyres and a computer program all of that become known very quickly.

Manchild is right. They should get rid of that silly mandatory tyre stop for starters and create another variable strategy which is to try and make a set of tyres last for a race.

[manchild]

Manchild - you also need to factor in reliability. Cars in the olden days fell apart a lot more often, races were often about attrition.

We now have cars that never run out of fuel, bit rarely fall off, drivers rarely have to battle with mechanical issues nowadays

Numbers of retirements in a season:
1984: 54%
1989: 51%
1999: 45%
2003: 32%
2006: 30%
2008: 24%
2009: 20%

viewtopic.php?p=128058#p128058

You're forgetting that back in those days there was so many low budget teams, much more teams - 20 teams in 1989! Now there are only big rich teams, it's a corporate F1, so no wonder reliability is increased, but not that much as it would be expected for almost half as much cars on the grid.

[i70q7m7ghw]

In my opinion the biggest problem this year was the durability of the tyres. We saw some drivers do stupid things on the soft tyres, soft tyres should be SOFT! Bridgestone wouldn't do it ofcourse, they are too worried about people thinking their tyres don't last very long, aren't very good etc. That is why the key ingredient missing from F1 at the moment is a tyre war! A sole tyre supplier was a bad choice from day one and it was born out of Max vs. Michelin after Indy 2005, nothing more, nothing less.

[mep]

The rules I want to see is qualy with race fuel for at least the top 10. Fuel loads should be kept secret after qualy. The average races should feature 2 or 3 stop strategies with the possibility to go exotic with 1, 4 or even 5 stops (Magny Cours). Forcing them to use both tyres is maybe really not needed as this rule never really worked like it should but that’s due to the fact that the difference in pace and wear is to small. However it should be possible to use both tyres in the race and the soft one has to be marked (the marking also needs to be much easier to spot). Important is that there is a significant difference between hard and soft tyre. The soft one should be used for the standard strategies with many stops. The hard one can be used to bring a variable for 1 stopper or for a short and long stint but generally a 3 stop strategy on soft tyres should be the best option. You could also play around a bit with the rules and limit the availability of soft or hard tyres. Like just 2 sets of soft tyres for race and qualy. This would also limit the amount of tyres the supplier has to bring to the races and therefore save costs.

This should give you plenty of possible strategies. No matter where you start from you will be able to win the race. You can go for low fuel qualy and start from pole but during the race you have to pit early. After your stop you can end up behind a 1 stopper. Due to your lighter car you can overtake him but you lose lots of time against other guys that pitted a few laps latter than you and used the light car to set one fastest lap after the other. There is no simple rule of thumb. You have to keep an overview of the race especially when unexpected things happen but that’s why it’s the pinnacle of motorsport. The rest is just cars running in circles. You might like to see a on track pass for a glimpse of a eye but I want to see a mind game performed over 1,5 hours.

Well in the end no matter what strategy you choose in the end the fastest car will win the race but heck that’s how it should be. At the moment it is not. When you are lucky you can get in front of a faster car and you don’t even have to worry much to stay there (see Hungary).

[segedunum]

The rules I want to see is qualy with race fuel for at least the top 10.

Already been tried. It made qualifying less exciting because we never saw drivers and cars at their fastest and people questioned how well a driver had actually done in qualifying. It devalued qualifying in other words. It didn't actually do anything tangible to vary the race either. People simply guessed pretty accurately what lap a driver would be coming in before published fuel weights confirmed it.

Fuel loads should be kept secret after qualy.

Already been tried. See above.

The average races should feature 2 or 3 stop strategies with the possibility to go exotic with 1, 4 or even 5 stops (Magny Cours).

Well that's lovely, but how are you going to force teams to use different strategies? What you'd like to see is irrelevant. Like I said, the number crunchers all come up with an optimal number of stops and times to stop and no one does anything different because it simply costs them in time and results.

I can't see this discussion going anywhere.

[Pingguest]

It should be mentioned that Formula 1 is drivers' championship in the first place. The series lacked a constructors' championship until 1958, most fans are mainly or solely interested in the drivers' championship and that's the reason behind the banned of most driver aids.

With pit stops, especially with mid-race refuelling, not the drivers but their teams determine the race strategy. To try finding the best possible strategy teams use advanced business strategy computer software. In other words, with pit stops not the driver but the team aided by advanced software are in control. In my opinion this goes very much against the principle of Formula 1 being the ultimate drivers' championship.

[Richard]

pinqquest - It has always operated as a constructors championship because the fastest car wins, not the fastest driver (he might be in a slow car). The WDC happens to be the person who is fastest of those who are in a fast car.