Do you want Refueling back?

[ringo]

refueling would have helped. Chances are the renault and mcalren may have completely different fuel weights if refueling was involved.
Without refueling the cars are all at the same fuel weight and hence performance.
So i would disagree that refueling wouldn't change a thing.

Imagine Kubica will an almost full tank, then Alonso with an almost empty tank, even switch the situation around, it can be seen that there has to be a mojor difference, and some overtaking would have taken place.
Refueling makes the race more variable,at any given time 2 cars can have completely different weights.

[myurr]

refueling would have helped. Chances are the renault and mcalren may have completely different fuel weights if refueling was involved.
Without refueling the cars are all at the same fuel weight and hence performance.
So i would disagree that refueling wouldn't change a thing.

Imagine Kubica will an almost full tank, then Alonso with an almost empty tank, even switch the situation around, it can be seen that there has to be a mojor difference, and some overtaking would have taken place.
Refueling makes the race more variable,at any given time 2 cars can have completely different weights.

I'm afraid I disagree, although I understand where you're coming from. Whilst two cars on different strategies (e.g. one stop vs two stop) will have different weights that wouldn't have been the case in this example. Presuming, for the sake of argument, that all the mentioned drivers planned to stop at the same points that they chose in the Abu Dhabi race so that we don't get into pointless arguments that because of refuelling RK wouldn't have chosen that strategy, etc. If we go down that route it again fails to look at whether or not refuelling helps cars overtake on track.

So looking back at this example, both FA and VP were fuelled to the end of the race with no further tyre stops planned. With refuelling they still would have had the same car weights as they didn't plan to stop again.

With LH and RK it would actually have made the situation worse. LH didn't plan to stop again so would have had the same fuel weight, whereas RK would have actually have been lighter and therefore harder to pass as he had one stop to go. And as Lewis showed, the performance differential was 1.5+ seconds a lap so it wasn't for a lack of difference in the pace of the cars. By far the biggest problem was that the current formula does not make wheel to wheel racing easy enough.

So whilst I agree that refuelling can lead to situations where a heavy car is holding up a light car and the light car can make an overtake attempt, the majority of teams will run close enough strategies that it is a rare occurrence (at the front of the grid at least).

What actually tended to happen was that because all the cars had to qualify on race fuel, the top cars would go with a similar strategy stopping within a few laps of each other. Not to do so resulted in too big a drop in track position. Sometimes a driver would carry a couple of laps more fuel and then use the pace of the car to make a pass in the pits, but it was a rare sight for a driver to qualify at the front on a one stop whilst everyone else qualified behind them on a two stop.

If all the cars qualified on low fuel and then could choose how much fuel to start the race with then you might see some variance in strategy with the lead cars going for a conservative one stop and those behind going for a two stop. But that is unlikely to happen whilst it is so difficult to overtake as it would be both difficult to make it past the cars in front and you would be likely to get held up behind another one stopper when you made your first pit stops.

[Tamburello]

Without refueling the cars are all at the same fuel weight and hence performance.

You have no justifiable reason to make such an assumption. The RB6 is clearly faster to a similarly fuel weighted R30 over a lap of a GP circuit but it still may not be able to pass the latter if following it on certain circuits and that's purely down to the nature of the aero of the cars and the negative effects it has on a car's tyres when following other cars closely.

[ringo]

None of you have any justifiable reasons to deny it.
The fact is is that it can happen, correct?
If a system has increased number of factors, shouldn't it have increase variability?

My argument is that whether the influence of refueling is great or small, in terms of the racing, it still would be an additional factor in a race and that would automatically break up the monotony of races like Bahrain 2010 and Brazil 2010.

Things would have been better in 2010 with refueling. Having refueling in 2010 would not have taken away anything from it. It could have only improved it.
No one can say with a straight face, it will do nothing at all. Passing in the pits is also over exaggerated. 2009 had some good on track battles, even though the performance gap between cars were greater.

I welcome any proponent of the refueling ban, to give an example of any race this year where refueling would have made the race worse.

In my opinion things could not have been any worse. Fueling is not the sole reason, it's really the formula, but refueling would have eased the problems.

[Giblet]

One also can't say with a straight face it would have improved it. There are just too many factors to know.

Other races that may have been exciting could have been made into borefests with refueling. We'll never know unless I can finish my time machine and subsequent successful run for the FIA presidency.

[myurr]

Canada was a race that probably would have been ruined by refuelling. With the cars lighter at the start we probably wouldn't have had so much tyre degradation and the variety of strategies that it forced. As Giblet says you cannot say with any certainty that any of the races would have been improved with refuelling - likely they all would have ended up running in procession with similar strategies just as they did throughout that majority of 2009 and before.

The thing that refuelling takes away from us next season is the hope that the cars balance will change throughout the race as the fuel load changes. Last season the drivers were able to rebalance the cars using the adjustable front wing, next season they won't be able to do that. Different cars will react differently to the range of fuel loads that they have to deal with, hopefully leading to a variation in relative pace throughout the race.

[mep]

Canada was a clasical race like we had them with refueling. With refueling many races where like Canada 2010. Without refueling it was more by accident because the tire supplier made a mistake and brought wrong tires.

Many things I hear are just hopes that something might happen or that racing will become improved. Car balance does change trough the race but this will not make the races more interesting because the teams will find very fast a way how to build a car so that no changing in positon will take place.
The guys building thhose cars are no idiots. They know how they have to build a car.

[myurr]

Canada was a clasical race like we had them with refueling. With refueling many races where like Canada 2010. Without refueling it was more by accident because the tire supplier made a mistake and brought wrong tires.

I struggle to remember any race like you describe that was that way because of refuelling. There was the odd time where a single car had to use a different strategy for some external reason or another - such as when LH had to stop an extra time due to tyre degradation in turn 8 at Turkey. More often than not everyone in the top 8 or so was on a two stop strategy, everyone behind on a one stop. Sometimes that formula varied, but that was the norm and it was certainly very unusual for one of the front runners to do something radically different from the rest.

You asked for a race that would have been made worse by refuelling, Canada was that race. It was so good because of the tyre wear, as you point out, but a large part of that was brought about because of the weight of the cars at the start - something refuelling would have prevented. In the past we had some classic races not because of refuelling, but because of a tyre war forcing suppliers to make marginal tyres.

Many things I hear are just hopes that something might happen or that racing will become improved. Car balance does change trough the race but this will not make the races more interesting because the teams will find very fast a way how to build a car so that no changing in positon will take place.
The guys building thhose cars are no idiots. They know how they have to build a car.

It's also those who are not idiots who are predicting problems with car balance next year. David Coulthard made the original point that balance changes and relative changes in pace would occur if refuelling was banned in an article on the BBC website around a year ago. That proved to not be the case this year because of the adjustable front wing, as written about Jenson Button. He predicts that next year there will be balance problems with the cars.

Yes all the teams are clever, but they'll all end up with different compromises and different strengths and weaknesses. It is those differences that should create some good on track action.

[komninosm]

If you don't have the pace to qualify near the front, you probably don't have enough pace to cut through the field.

Umm isn't this an argument for refuelling? Cause it makes it easier have faster pace than people on less stops than you.

Ya know, Max's two tier series idea with the people under budget having KERS and whatnot might have been pretty damn interesting.

That's not at all in the spirit of pure racing though...

Without pitstops and strategies there is not much to expect after the start.

Surely that is a problem with the forumla and not something to be addressed with refuelling? If there was more variance between the cars quali pace and race pace and the cars were able to race wheel to wheel then wouldn't that be a more 'true to the spirit of the sport' than trying to address it via introducing refuelling strategies that are often set the day before and are usually out of the hands of the driver come race day?

But if you address the overtaking problem first (with less wing or whatever) then do you choose refuelling or no refuelling? With overtaking easier I still think refuelling being allowed would lead to more interesting races.

I don't understand how more variance between qualifications pace and race pace affects anything in a good way. Also refuelling hardly takes the strategies out of the hands of the driver, it does the opposite actually to what we saw in this season.

Racing never used to be non stop passing, I still don't know people expect it in modern formula 1.

If you don't have the pace to qualify near the front, you probably don't have enough pace to cut through the field.

Whilst this is true, my personal beef with the current situation was ably demonstrated by Hamilton and Alonso in Abu Dhabi where they were clearly in much faster cars but could barely even challenge for an overtake let alone make it past. I rate those two drivers as probably the two best overtakers in the field, so I don't think the problem was with the drivers.

Overtaking shouldn't be easy or happen every lap throughout the race or anything like that, but certainly when you have a car that has even similar pace to the car in front (say a couple of tenths faster) and you've been able to close right up to the tail of the car in front, then you should at least be able to hussle the car in front and try to force an error or try a bold overtake and see if you can make it stick.

From memory, after Kubica pitted in Abu Dhabi Hamilton was able to immediately go around 1.5 seconds a lap quicker. With that kind of pace difference he should have been able to get past Kubica relatively easily instead of being held up for so many laps despite his best efforts. Part of that was the way the cars were set up, part of it was the circuit, but the major problem is with the cars themselves.

I honestly don't think the movable rear wing is the answer, but I'll be happy to be proven wrong. The trick will be to balance the advantage so that the car behind has the chance to challenge into the next braking zone rather than simply breezing past on the straight.

Either way I don't think that refuelling provides any kind of solution or improvement to this situation. We would still have seen both Hamilton and Alonso held up in the same way, so the root cause of the current problems with wheel to wheel racing would still be there (as they were in previous refuelling years).

Don't you think that if refuelling wasn't banned Hamilton and Alonso would have less trouble to overtake the Renaults (one way or another). At least Hamilton who was one pit-stop ahead.
Anyway, refuelling may not provide any kind of solution or improvement to this situation as you say, but it doesn't make it any worse either. So don't use it as an argument against lifting the ban please.

[Giblet]

If you don't have the pace to qualify near the front, you probably don't have enough pace to cut through the field.

Umm isn't this an argument for refuelling? Cause it makes it easier have faster pace than people on less stops than you.

No it's not an argument for or against. I am simply saying that if you don't have the pace to qualify up front, you don't have the pace to pass people, so refueling gives you an artificial option.

I also wasn't serious about the two tiered series, it was a jest at the fact that F1 cars, especially in the last season, are separated by less time than I can remember.

Most qualifying sessions had all the cars withing ~1 second.

Two tiered series have been around for ages, it's nothing new. They aren't really racing eachother, and even with advantages, I doubt the new teams would have been able to compete very well.

This is discussion about refueling, and there are aspects to both sides of the coin. I understand that some races might be more interesting with refueling, but I feel the majority would not be, and so that is why while discussing this, I will lean towards the type of racing I would rather see.

[komninosm]

Can someone remind me please why in previous years they stopped allowing the first 10 cars to refuel between qualifiers and race and why they started publishing weights?

[ringo]

Canada was a clasical race like we had them with refueling. With refueling many races where like Canada 2010. Without refueling it was more by accident because the tire supplier made a mistake and brought wrong tires.

I struggle to remember any race like you describe that was that way because of refuelling. There was the odd time where a single car had to use a different strategy for some external reason or another - such as when LH had to stop an extra time due to tyre degradation in turn 8 at Turkey. More often than not everyone in the top 8 or so was on a two stop strategy, everyone behind on a one stop. Sometimes that formula varied, but that was the norm and it was certainly very unusual for one of the front runners to do something radically different from the rest.

You asked for a race that would have been made worse by refuelling, Canada was that race. It was so good because of the tyre wear, as you point out, but a large part of that was brought about because of the weight of the cars at the start - something refuelling would have prevented. In the past we had some classic races not because of refuelling, but because of a tyre war forcing suppliers to make marginal tyres.

Many things I hear are just hopes that something might happen or that racing will become improved. Car balance does change trough the race but this will not make the races more interesting because the teams will find very fast a way how to build a car so that no changing in positon will take place.
The guys building thhose cars are no idiots. They know how they have to build a car.

It's also those who are not idiots who are predicting problems with car balance next year. David Coulthard made the original point that balance changes and relative changes in pace would occur if refuelling was banned in an article on the BBC website around a year ago. That proved to not be the case this year because of the adjustable front wing, as written about Jenson Button. He predicts that next year there will be balance problems with the cars.

Yes all the teams are clever, but they'll all end up with different compromises and different strengths and weaknesses. It is those differences that should create some good on track action.

Canada would not have been worse. The teams made so many stops that race it was rediculous. That race was a wacky race. Maybe with refueling the back markers would have been running heavy and have to come in earlier and maybe go on the softer tyre. It would have been just as wacky otherwise.
It's hard to blame the degredation on fuel weight as well, since we don't know the extent to which a lighter tank would have alleviated the wear. It may have well be 5 or more laps added on before a stop, who knows?

[myurr]

Can someone remind me please why in previous years they stopped allowing the first 10 cars to refuel between qualifiers and race and why they started publishing weights?

My understanding was that qualifying on race fuel was designed to allow teams to try different strategies so that you could trade optimum first stopping time for a higher grid slot if you were fuelled light. In reality all the teams went for similar strategies as if you go too heavy you lost out too badly in track position, go too light and you simply get passed at the first stops. If you have low fuel qualifying and then let teams put any fuel load they like in the cars then you would end up with ever more conservative strategies. With it being so difficult to pass, being a tad slower due to fuel load isn't a problem if you can then put in a couple of quick laps after the car behind has had to pit.

They started publishing fuel weights to increase the openness of the sport. It didn't really matter to the teams as they would perform their own analysis anyway in order to work out what their competitors were doing, so always knew pretty much when everyone would pit.

[myurr]

Canada would not have been worse. The teams made so many stops that race it was rediculous. That race was a wacky race. Maybe with refueling the back markers would have been running heavy and have to come in earlier and maybe go on the softer tyre. It would have been just as wacky otherwise.
It's hard to blame the degredation on fuel weight as well, since we don't know the extent to which a lighter tank would have alleviated the wear. It may have well be 5 or more laps added on before a stop, who knows?

Worse as in less entertaining. For me it's good to have the odd race where things are shaken up a bit, by rain or other factors such as tyre degradation. I wouldn't want that to happen every race, but once in a while is good.

Degradation was markedly worse at the beginning of the race, in part due to the track and tyre combination, and in part due to the weight. It was definitely a factor - Bridgestone talked all season about how the weight at the start of the race increased the tyre degradation, it's safe to assume that this was a factor in Canada and probably markedly so when the tyres were already struggling.

Take LH for example, he pitted on lap 7 then lap 26 before completing the 70 lap race (i.e. 10% and 37% of race distance). Are those pit stops really so heavily skewed towards the early laps by a more significant factor than fuel?

[Tamburello]

If a system has increased number of factors, shouldn't it have increase variability?

Or it can not, also. How many people remember Trulli trains down the years? Look I agree that refueling gives GPs some strategic variance but it is purely subjective which method provides the better 'races'.