Canadian GP 2010 - Circuit Gilles Villeneuve

[bill shoe]

After I pulled my head away from the second by second crashgate video I found some interesting points that will continue this season, including Canada.

1. It appears the McLarens and the RBs do not have enough fuel to run flat out for an entire dry race. The Turkey crash was great entertainment, but we missed out on the spectacle of 4 evenly matched cars fighting each other over the last 10 laps with insuficient fuel and slowing laptimes. The pre-Canada fuel strategy was to go hard for the first 50% of the race and then save fuel later in the race and hope the opposition didn't notice. But Turkey showed that strategy is not workable if the opposition is on your butt. Also, if a team has a nose-to-tail 1-2 late in the race but they are both in fuel saving mode then is it OK for driver 2 to turn up the fuel briefly and pass? I can see McLaren successfully enforcing the no-pass order but RB?

2. The Vettel/Webber thing reminds me of Alonso/Hamilton at McLaren a couple years ago. However, I think Alonso had the advantage then because he already had two world championships and therefore was willing to drag himself down in order to prevent Hamilton/McLaren from winning anything. In contrast Vettel has no championships and probably is not willing to reduce his chances of a championship to drag down Webber. Also, Vettel will stay with his team in the future unlike Alonso who knew he wouldn't stay at McLaren. This will be great to watch.

[ringo]

To add to that, Webber knows this is his best opportunity, he isn't going to allow young Vettel to take that away from him.

[Carlo's]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjZOG7uQqjk

On-board with last winner of Canadian GP

F-duct will be crucial here, but good car over the kerbs and good traction will help of course.

In fact, Montreal is the first really low downforce track so there we may have some interesting results. Shame that Renault won't have f-duct there, cause they could do well there. I'm curious whether McLaren advantage from f-duct and top speed will beat good suspension and traction or not.

[Poleman]

McLaren showed a really solid front end and a very stable car over the kerbs in Turkey.Hopefully they will do well in Montreal too and hopefully we will watch an exciting challenging race.

[thestig84]

hopefully we will watch an exciting challenging race.

I hope so too. I love the Canadian GP so cant wait to see it back.

One thing is for sure, Im going to make sure I appreciate every second as its sure to be better than the Valencia dump of a dock race looming in the near future!!

[ISLAMATRON]

So is JB the next WDC to hit wall of champions? Or maybe Fred(has he hit it yet) or Lou?

[ringo]

some good memories:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNR1OqmNl9M[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ecq2kHlJXD4[/youtube]

I'm expecting some HRTs and Virgins to get nice and cozy with the wall after the chicane.

[-andrew-]

1. It appears the McLarens and the RBs do not have enough fuel to run flat out for an entire dry race. The Turkey crash was great entertainment, but we missed out on the spectacle of 4 evenly matched cars fighting each other over the last 10 laps with insuficient fuel and slowing laptimes. The pre-Canada fuel strategy was to go hard for the first 50% of the race and then save fuel later in the race and hope the opposition didn't notice. But Turkey showed that strategy is not workable if the opposition is on your butt. Also, if a team has a nose-to-tail 1-2 late in the race but they are both in fuel saving mode then is it OK for driver 2 to turn up the fuel briefly and pass? I can see McLaren successfully enforcing the no-pass order but RB?

Turkey was the first time where either team mentioned having a fuel issue, but who knows if either of them had started the race at max capacity. The teams are trying to carry just enough fuel for the race, but not much more. All 4 cars were pushing very hard throughout the whole race, I wonder if it just comes down to both teams just not carying enough "reserve" fuel to compensate.

[djos]

McLaren showed a really solid front end and a very stable car over the kerbs in Turkey.Hopefully they will do well in Montreal too and hopefully we will watch an exciting challenging race.

Stable? I disagree, the MacMercs where very pointy (changed direction well) but where far more nervous over the bumps than the RedBulls which positively glided around the track!

[mx_tifoso]

I've cleaned this thread up and it has been shortened by nearly two pages!

The religion comments were pretty funny but for the most part aren't really appropriate for the thread nor for everyone to be reading, especially the hijacking stuff, even though it was a joke.

Please stick to discussing the 2010 GP.

[Giblet]

So is JB the next WDC to hit wall of champions? Or maybe Fred(has he hit it yet) or Lou?

JB has already hit it, but he wasn't a champion yet.

[raymondu999]

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Lucy Hamilton win here in 07 on his first race here?

[mx_tifoso]

Are you not able to correct yourself using google or wikipedia?

[bill shoe]

Turkey was the first time where either team mentioned having a fuel issue, but who knows if either of them had started the race at max capacity. The teams are trying to carry just enough fuel for the race, but not much more. All 4 cars were pushing very hard throughout the whole race, I wonder if it just comes down to both teams just not carying enough "reserve" fuel to compensate.

Interesting point.

Let's imagine a team has plenty of tank capacity and can fuel the car with 150 kg or 149 kg. The team knows 150 kg will allow the driver to go full power for exactly the full race distance and run out of fuel at the finish line. 149 kg will require the driver to short shift on the final lap thereby costing 2 seconds. However, starting with 149 kg reduces the weight of the car by 1 kg during each of the preceding laps thereby saving 5 seconds over the race. 149 kg has a net improvement of 3 seconds. The optimum fuel load is not necessarily the one that allows you to run full distance at full power, rather it might be the one that gets you to the finish line soonest.

Fuel strategy gets more severe if you want to optimize track position instead of optimizing time to the finish line. The optimum strategy for track position is to be as quick as possible until the end of the pit stop sequence (~ half race distance). This means a very light fuel load at the start and full power for the first half of the race followed by severe conservation mode in the second half. This would seem to work if everyone else is doing it, but once your opposition knows you are short fueling for the races they may be tempted to put more fuel in and optimize their overall race time. It is not difficult for them to pass you three laps from the end if they have twice as much fuel.

For that matter it is easy for your teammate to turn up his fuel and pass you three laps from the end if he expects the team to give "hold position" orders for the last two laps. He can save the fuel then. The incentive to drivers is to use as much fuel as possible early in the race while they are allowed to because if you have saved 5 kg more fuel than your teammate when the "hold position" orders come down then you can't put it to any use.

The relative fuel loads and the timing of "hold position" orders are powerful tools a team can use to influence which of its cars will finish the race first. Yes, this will be an interesting season...

[-andrew-]

Interesting point.

Let's imagine a team has plenty of tank capacity and can fuel the car with 150 kg or 149 kg. The team knows 150 kg will allow the driver to go full power for exactly the full race distance and run out of fuel at the finish line. 149 kg will require the driver to short shift on the final lap thereby costing 2 seconds. However, starting with 149 kg reduces the weight of the car by 1 kg during each of the preceding laps thereby saving 5 seconds over the race. 149 kg has a net improvement of 3 seconds. The optimum fuel load is not necessarily the one that allows you to run full distance at full power, rather it might be the one that gets you to the finish line soonest.

Fuel strategy gets more severe if you want to optimize track position instead of optimizing time to the finish line. The optimum strategy for track position is to be as quick as possible until the end of the pit stop sequence (~ half race distance). This means a very light fuel load at the start and full power for the first half of the race followed by severe conservation mode in the second half. This would seem to work if everyone else is doing it, but once your opposition knows you are short fueling for the races they may be tempted to put more fuel in and optimize their overall race time. It is not difficult for them to pass you three laps from the end if they have twice as much fuel.

For that matter it is easy for your teammate to turn up his fuel and pass you three laps from the end if he expects the team to give "hold position" orders for the last two laps. He can save the fuel then. The incentive to drivers is to use as much fuel as possible early in the race while they are allowed to because if you have saved 5 kg more fuel than your teammate when the "hold position" orders come down then you can't put it to any use.

The relative fuel loads and the timing of "hold position" orders are powerful tools a team can use to influence which of its cars will finish the race first. Yes, this will be an interesting season...

Hmm.. My initial thinking was to simply compare a team's fuel strategy with an airliner. Best case for an airliner is to cary just enough fuel to keep weight down, but the scenerio you're talking about makes some sense and really does make things interesting.

You can apply that logic to a race like Monaco, atleast for Redbull where they had a large advatage and could have easily finished the race with a huge lead over everyone else if it were't for the frequent safety cars. In that case, sure you can cary less fuel to get a jump on the rest of the field and plan to go into conservation mode in the last few laps while you're well in the lead.

If you look at Turkey though, Redbull and Mclaren were very cloely matched and were running flat out for pretty much the entire race. Webber went into fuel conservation mode shortly before lap 40, while Vettel was still running flat out due to saving fuel giving him another few laps. The official word from Redbull on Vettel's attempt to overtake Webber is that he had no other choice but to keep pressing forward due to pressure from Hamilton. Had he pulled it off, he still would have had to slow down himself sooner than later since he started with the same fuel load as Webber. Surely Mclaren could have kept up the pace and overtaken both Redbulls if they also hadn't underestimated the ammount of fuel needed. I almost wonder if neither team realized how closely matched they would be.