"I Don't Believe It!"

I got the general idea Ninja.
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I have to say the whole situation confuddled me. I think Mclaren have always had a problem with figuring out how much fuel is needed to get round Silverstone because didn't Senna run out of fuel on the last lap 2 years in a row when he was at Mclaren.

Would have been interesting to see if Jenson had the same issue if they'd put his wheel on properly although I think its a good job for Mclaren the Jenson didn't get out the pits again - imagine if Lewis had had to give up 4th to Jenson whilst he was saving fuel!(he would have been in that position) - imagine the headlines! imagine the forums!
 
What I am confused about is, even if Hamilton was "much faster than they thought he would be", how did he manage to end up having to save fuel 20 laps before the end??
 
I remember Mario Andretti running out of fuel at the Dutch GP in 1980 as the wind had changed direction on the main straight between warm up (remember that?) and the race. I only point this out to show so many different things affect fuel consumption during a Grand Prix.

This doesn't excuse or explain why McLaren did what they did to Lewis though - suffice to say though he wouldn't have been as fast as he was in the early part of the race if it hadn't been for the light fuel load and he paid for it later on. I'm sure the team would have made him more than aware of the fuel load he had and the sort of pace they expected him to achieve, he simply drove too fast for the strategy.
 
A possible excuse for Mclaren is that they may have taken a gamble on a safety car or two coming out in the early stages when the track was very unpredictable. 6-8 laps of safety car time may have been all the time he needed to push the whole way under green flags. I personally don't agree with this kind of risk, but that could explain how he was so massively underfuelled
 
F1 is constantly about 1UPmanship, underfuelling to save a few tenths is part of it, maybe there should be a regulation standard fuel amount that all teams have to start with?
 
F1 is constantly about 1UPmanship, underfuelling to save a few tenths is part of it, maybe there should be a regulation standard fuel amount that all teams have to start with?
Sounds like a good idea to me, the only problem with that I can see is the different engines/teams have different consumption levels, which would make it hard to find a balance that all the teams will agree on. I mean, it will penalise teams that have designed their car to be a bit leaner on fuel that then has to put a load more in because of a new regulation
 
F1 is constantly about 1UPmanship, underfuelling to save a few tenths is part of it, maybe there should be a regulation standard fuel amount that all teams have to start with?

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Well that's precisely what they did in the turbo era isn't it? But as Van Challis said, the problem was that engines have different fuel consumption and at the time, they thought scenes like these weren't good for F1's image:

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Well that's precisely what they did in the turbo era isn't it? But as Van Challis said, the problem was that engines have different fuel consumption and at the time, they thought scenes like these weren't good for F1's image:

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Always gives me satisfaction to see this pic of Prost pushing his car. Never liked him really, :D although I respect him massively as a driver
 
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