Refueling Days?

[Il Leone]

There's still a number of people that would like to being back refueling, for me I could take it or leave it, on one hand it would be great to see the cars going flat out in short sprints but on the other hand the less overtaking we can see in the pits the better.

Anyway, it got me thinking, how on earth did teams calculate what was the best strategy for a particular race and for each driver? As we know they qualified with race fuel, depending on the circuit you could find an advantage on qualifying lighter and vice versa on other circuits. In theory it is better to start heavier and then make up that time when others pit, but as you know dirty air can put a spanner in the works along with many other scenarios, the engineers back then were certainly earning their wages.

[bluechris]

The flat out is what makes me love the refueling. I cannot stand how F1 became with only the tyres preservation in mind. We all started to watch other series to see real racing....

[Il Leone]

The flat out is what makes me love the refueling. I cannot stand how F1 became with only the tyres preservation in mind. We all started to watch other series to see real racing....

This is also one of the reasons maybe why older drivers can stay competitive for longer?

[bluechris]

The flat out is what makes me love the refueling. I cannot stand how F1 became with only the tyres preservation in mind. We all started to watch other series to see real racing....

This is also one of the reasons maybe why older drivers can stay competitive for longer?

Oh haven't thought of that.. but you think Hamilton or Alonso will have problem because of fatigue? i dont think so...

[Il Leone]

The flat out is what makes me love the refueling. I cannot stand how F1 became with only the tyres preservation in mind. We all started to watch other series to see real racing....

This is also one of the reasons maybe why older drivers can stay competitive for longer?

Oh haven't thought of that.. but you think Hamilton or Alonso will have problem because of fatigue? i dont think so...

Yes, the more you push the harder it is to keep concentration and the more mistakes we'd see, if we never deteriorated with age we'd see sports stars competing till they passed away lol.

[Il Leone]

This is not really what I'm after, how did they determine what strategy was best, what made them come to varying conclusions?

[Big Tea]

What I liked about it was the option of run light and get a gap or run heavy and dont need a stop.
To be interesting it would have to be matched up with a tyre range to fit the strat.

[Il Leone]

What I liked about it was the option of run light and get a gap or run heavy and dont need a stop.
To be interesting it would have to be matched up with a tyre range to fit the strat.

They didn't have big enough fuel tanks to do a zero stopper did they?

[Mogster]

What I liked about it was the option of run light and get a gap or run heavy and dont need a stop.
To be interesting it would have to be matched up with a tyre range to fit the strat.

They didn't have big enough fuel tanks to do a zero stopper did they?

I think V10 fuel usage was 200l or more for the race, the tank would have had to be massive. I seem to remember in the early re-fuelling days at least one team was rumoured to have retained the option to fit whole race tank. With the V10s being so thirsty I don’t think the non stop was ever viable, even at Monaco.

Fuel usage is quite low now. The performance delta of full/empty would be much less.

[bluechris]

What I liked about it was the option of run light and get a gap or run heavy and dont need a stop.
To be interesting it would have to be matched up with a tyre range to fit the strat.

They didn't have big enough fuel tanks to do a zero stopper did they?

I think V10 fuel usage was 200l or more for the race, the tank would have had to be massive. I seem to remember in the early re-fuelling days at least one team was rumoured to have retained the option to fit whole race tank. With the V10s being so thirsty I don’t think the non stop was ever viable, even at Monaco.

Fuel usage is quite low now. The performance delta of full/empty would be much less.

I totally havent thought that to hunt like maniac you will need a lot of fuel but the current Formula if it stays as it is it can have both worlds. A team can run as it runs now, dead slow for allmost all of the race with no pitstop ..and another team can do as many pitstop's likes with less fuel onboard....
/me likes this

[leblanc]

This is not really what I'm after, how did they determine what strategy was best, what made them come to varying conclusions?

Grossly oversimplified: All teams have/had data on lap times with fuel loads, tire wear, track temp, et al. Add up the combinations that results in the race completed in the shortest time and you get a strategy.

[f1isgood]

Refueling era was extremely confusing at least from my memories. Hard to follows what the hell was going on, and none of it made sense. The current era is quite good relatively speaking. Although I do wonder what F1 w/ DRS and refueling would look like

[Big Tea]

What I liked about it was the option of run light and get a gap or run heavy and dont need a stop.
To be interesting it would have to be matched up with a tyre range to fit the strat.

They didn't have big enough fuel tanks to do a zero stopper did they?

When it was first done only one team did it (Ecclestone's Brabham) and I don't think there was any limit on tanks or tyres and no safety cars so it was just a straight gamble. Most teams run on one tyre set unless there was a puncture and tyres lasted the whole race so there was no need to stop. It was an effort to allow a lower powered lighter car to compete with much more powerful cars.

[Dunlay]

The flat out is what makes me love the refueling. I cannot stand how F1 became with only the tyres preservation in mind. We all started to watch other series to see real racing....

We now have this problem in MotoGP too. Riders are biding time and going through laps, like a good 2 to 3 seconds slower and thinking of attacking in the last 5 or 6 laps.

[SiLo]

Refueling era was extremely confusing at least from my memories. Hard to follows what the hell was going on, and none of it made sense. The current era is quite good relatively speaking. Although I do wonder what F1 w/ DRS and refueling would look like

I grew up watching this era and never found it confusing, I'm never sure why so many say this. Refuelling wasn't some complex thing to work out.