Vanja #66 wrote: ↑06 Mar 2025, 19:51
Emag wrote: ↑06 Mar 2025, 16:34
Because I think in Bahrain, 70 liters of Fuel should add closer to +3 seconds in laptime and not +2.
Is there data that backs up +50% bigger weight penalty?
There is no data that backs up the 0.03s per 10kg of fuel either, because as you pointed out before, we don't really have a reference on drivers pushing 100% on a full tank of fuel. That is a rough estimate that has been around since early 2010s (as far as I can remember), at least 3 generations of cars before the ones we have today.
Even if you think that estimate is still true, it's not going to be the same for every track because it is an average. Assuming a normal distribution of laptime loss per 10kg of fuel on all the tracks, some tracks will be on the left side of the bell curve (meaning < 0.03) and some tracks will be on the right side of the bell curve (meaning > 0.03).
Bahrain is a track where you get severely punished for having bad traction / acceleration. If you have a lot of weight, both of those get quite a big nerf. But really, no need to go into details just to say I don't know. There is no data I can provide that can conclusively give a number on how much laptime loss 10kg of fuel causes in Bahrain because there is none. I just assume it to be on the higher side of the estimates we have, which I think are wrong in general anyway, because I don't think added weight has a linear relationship with laptime loss. At least not with human drivers, because no human can drive a car at 100% of its limit. At 5kg for example, the differences are pretty much negligible for the driver. If he doesn't know the car is "overweight", he will likely not notice anything off with it at all.
The bigger the weight, the worse the car feels to drive and the more difficult it will be for a human who relies on feel to drive it close to that limit, hence why I think the 0.03s per 10kg, even if you assume it to be true, it shouldn't be constant for a human driver.