"I Don't Believe It!"

[RevMaxPower]

I am dumbfounded by the fact that if an F1 driver is REALLY going for it he sometimes has to SLOW DOWN because he may not have enough fuel to finish the race!
To me this is absolutely ludicrous as the whole reason for the event in the first place is to put on a show of driving skill and speed and yet those who are obviously trying to do just that are penalised. What an absolute FARCE...!

Sorry guys - but I do think this is a major flaw in the rule book - along with so many others this year I've lost count!!!

F1? More like "Wacky Races"..............................

 

[RevMaxPower]

OK - I've calmed down now.

Seriously though, I sure hope the powers that be manage to plan ahead a bit more to prevent these silly problems that keep returning to bite them on their rear ends. In my view they are fast losing credibility. Not very professional either - all this "hit and miss", "shooting in the dark" and last minute changes of mind...

 

[Bill Boddy]

There's no flaw in the rule book. The law is that there is no re-fuelling allowed during a race. It's up to the teams to ensure that the drivers have enough to complete the distance.

 

[RevMaxPower]

There's no flaw in the rule book. The law is that there is no re-fuelling allowed during a race. It's up to the teams to ensure that the drivers have enough to complete the distance.

Fair enough. So how come McLaren didn't get that simple item right on Sunday? Are they that incompetent?

 

[Brogan]

They underestimated Hamilton's speed.

Presumably they based the total fuel required on the qualifying pace, which was 1.5 seconds off pole.
As Hamilton drove quite a bit faster than that, the fuel was used more quickly than anticipated.

Teams always fuel either just enough to make it to the end of the race, or even routinely under-fuel.
Last season we saw a lot of drivers being told to save fuel towards the end of the race.

 

[VanChallis]

I agree that they underestimated the pure pace that Hamilton had in the race, but telling him to MASSIVELY save on fuel for 21 laps must mean that they made a major error anyway. I think someone forgot to carry a 1 in the equations or something!
It's a shame, if he didn't have to do that he'd most probably have been right with the Vettel/Webber scrap at the end. Although it was good to see his last lap encounter with Massa, blinding racing from the pair of them, what racing is all about!

 

[Chad Stewarthill]

They underestimated Hamilton's speed.

Presumably they based the total fuel required on the qualifying pace, which was 1.5 seconds off pole.
As Hamilton drove quite a bit faster than that, the fuel was used more quickly than anticipated.

Yes, apparently compounded by the wet conditions at the start, in which conditions Lewis drove much quicker (and therefore burnt more fuel) than anyone at Mclaren had anticipated, but they let him get on with it as he was doing so well!

I think VanChallis is right that even allowing for that, Lewis was definitely way under-fuelled. Added to the strategic mistakes in Q2 and Q3, Lewis is certainly not being helped by the team at the moment and may have been prevented from challenging for the win on Sunday.

 

[Brogan]

and may have been prevented from challenging for the win on Sunday.

That wouldn't be the first time this season, after Monaco and Canada.

 

[RevMaxPower]

So what can they afford to remove from the car to save weight to allow for more fuel?

McLaren really need to get their act together before 2012. One way or another between them they have totally dashed their own hopes for this season.

 

[The Pits]

I would hope that they are a little more scientific than has been described, using as much known data as possible, including last year. However, there is an element of strategising, which allows for more speed at phases of the race due to less fuel.

In other words, yes he was underfuelled, but would he have been as fast at the start if he was not? So ultimately, was his overall finishing position hampered by guide, or with sufficient fuel, would he have been fourth anyway?

Does anyone know how Jenson was fuelled?

 

[Brogan]

So what can they afford to remove from the car to save weight to allow for more fuel?

All of the cars are already underweight and the minimum weight has to be made up with ballast.

The amount of fuel is entirely up to the teams, other than the only restriction being the size of the fuel bladder, and that is more than large enough for the longest of races.

 

[Brogan]

I would hope that they are a little more scientific than has been described, using as much known data as possible, including last year. However, there is an element of strategising, which allows for more speed at phases of the race due to less fuel.

This may help: http://f1datajunkie.blogspot.com/2011/05/f1-2011-turkey-race-fuel-corrected.html

A rough guide though is around 0.3 seconds per 10kg of fuel, per lap.

 

[RevMaxPower]

Surely 0.3 seconds, 0.6 seconds or even 0.9 seconds per lap would be relatively easy to make up for the likes of Mr Hamilton, going by his performance yesterday. His strategist obviously has little faith...

 

[siffert_fan]

People keep ranting on about how the McLaren team strategy is being made without driver input. Does anyone here have proof of that (that is, is anyone here a member of the team with first-hand knowledge of that being fact), or is it mere speculation?

 

[The Pits]

I would add, that they were in a similar position with Jenson last year, where he was unable to chase nico due to fuel. Very similar circumstances too, with a low qualifying position leading to an agressive start to the race.

 

[Brogan]

When it comes to fuel consumption and how much to put in for the race, I doubt the drivers have much input at all.
It will all be down to the data and the engineers.

 

[Bill Boddy]

It would be interesting to see by how much he was underfuelled, but it would also be necessary to know how much that amount of fuel affects the lap time.

The chart given quotes Turkey as being 0.3 seconds per 10kg. If it were that much then it would make 9 seconds difference over 30 laps which would make quite a difference to his position within the race. It might also mean heavier tyre wear. Once you start factoring that in it becomes very complex.

I still don't see why Hamilton had such a poor qualifying time. His tyres were used but had not exactly been stressed, they couldn't have made that him much slower.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

People keep ranting on about how the McLaren team strategy is being made without driver input. Does anyone here have proof of that (that is, is anyone here a member of the team with first-hand knowledge of that being fact), or is it mere speculation?

I think it's fair to say that Lewis didn't ask his engineers to take some fuel out. "Don't worry guys, I won't need that much, I'm not really going to push today"

 

[The Pits]

I would like to think that the drivers would be informed of what the engineers thought they were doing, so they can agree with the strategy, e.g. we are going aggressive today which we think will mean fuel mixture will need to be lean from lap 40, however, this is all assuming that there is not a signidicant error in the calculations, at which point, regardless of who agreed what, it is back to the drawing board as it were.

In short, the drivers can only agree on the strategy, not the numbers that is calculated as a result of that.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

I would like to think that the drivers would be informed of what the engineers thought they were doing, so they can agree with the strategy, e.g. we are going aggressive today which we think will mean fuel mixture will need to be lean from lap 40, however, this is all assuming that there is not a signidicant error in the calculations, at which point, regardless of who agreed what, it is back to the drawing board as it were.

In short, the drivers can only agree on the strategy, not the numbers that is calculated as a result of that.

The driver has enough to think about. Car balance, yes. Power delivery, yes. fuel weights, no!

. The engineers are there for a reason. Why distract the driver with a load of brain-dump when you pay a load of engineers to take care of all that?

There are some things that should be done collaboratively in a team and there are other things that should be placed in the hands of specialists. sometimes they will get it wrong. Put it in the hands of people who don't know what they are talking about and it will go wrong more often than not.

Look, everyone has 20-20 hindsight. Mistakes are made. You wouldn't expect Jenson to go round before the race teaching his mechanics how to use the wheel gun or having a conversation with them about what they should do if it doesn't work.