This week the FIA and FOTA announced a range of cost cutting measures they hope will secure the future of Formula One. The new framework for the sport includes restrictions on testing, cheaper longer lasting engines, and a limit on the facilities that teams are allowed to use.
Also tucked away in the new package was the rather interesting announcement that refuelling will be banned from Grand Prix racing in 2010.
It seems a little strange that fuel stops should be eliminated from the sport under the guise of cost cutting. There is obviously an expense in maintaining a set of fuel rigs and carting them around the world, but I didn’t think getting rid of refuelling would be such a big cost saving because the teams will still need to fill their cars with something.
Most of the new measures have been introduced to make the sport cheaper without impacting ‘the show’, but a ban on refuelling is quite the opposite. It will dramatically change the shape of F1.
Does that make it a good thing or a bad thing?
Refuelling as we know it today has been a part of the sport since 1994 but was first used in Grand Prix racing during the late fifties.
Juan Manuel Fangio won the 1957 German Grand Prix after deciding to make a pitstop for fuel and tyres mid race. It was the first time that such a strategy had been intentionally used to win a Grand Prix, but that statistic is often forgotten in the excitement surrounding Fangio’s last win, which he only claimed on the final lap.
That first pitstop had not gone particularly well and Fangio would probably have won the race easily without it, which might explain why no other team tried using refuelling as a strategy until 25 years later.
Brabham were one of the first teams to be using thirsty turbo engines in the eighties, and figured a mid race pitstop would help them overcome the performance drawback of having to run with extra fuel.
They tried this tactic for the first time in 1982 and found it gave them an advantage over the field at the start of a race because they had much lighter tanks, and also gave them an advantage right after their pitstop because they would be on fresh tyres. All they had to do was build up a big enough lead in the first half of the Grand Prix to make the strategy work.
This was easier said than done for Brabham in 1982 because their car was horrendously unreliable. They would be lucky to reach their half distance pitstop, let alone finish the Grand Prix. The best result they got by using a pitstop for fuel in 1982 was fourth.
It was enough though for the idea of fuel stops to catch on and a number of teams started using them the following year. This was despite Brabham having the only car that was designed with an efficient half-sized tank.
At the very first Grand Prix of the 1983 season in Brazil, Nelson Piquet took victory having spent the first 40 laps of the race pulling out a margin over his rivals. It was enough for him to pit for fuel and rejoin ahead of the field, making it the first time since Fangio that a driver had won by using such a strategy.
Perhaps more significant was that Williams also tried refuelling during the race, but their car caught fire as a result. This was the start of an alarming trend in 1983 as teams tried to gain any sort of advantage by shoving fuel into their cars as quickly as possible. It was a practice fraught with danger, especially since a few of the teams were using something close to rocket fuel, and rocket fuel is not something that you want to have an accident with.
The FIA (then known as FISA) soon recognised this and banned refuelling from 1984.
Exactly ten years later the sport’s governing body changed its tune, and felt compelled to spice up the show after a few years of Williams domination. They combined a ban on electronic driver aids with the return of refuelling and it heralded the start of the new strategic ‘sprint’ era of Formula One.
Everyone’s attention turned from fuel and tyre conservation to pitlane tactics.
At the first race featuring the new regulations in 1994, Michael Schumacher was unable to pass Ayrton Senna on the track but jumped him in the fuel stops. It was a sign of things to come.
The fuel load of a car is the single biggest factor impacting its overall speed, and when teams were given the opportunity to play with this as they wanted it opened up a whole new range of strategic possibilities.
Pitstop tactics became just as important as speed itself.
Throughout the nineties, Ferrari in particular were able to use canny fuel loads to beat their rivals when outright pace was simply not enough. Michael Schumacher snatched the 1998 Hungarian Grand Prix from under McLaren’s nose because his team used an innovative three stop strategy. He ran insanely light throughout the race, but did so with enough margin to make an extra stop.
It would have been a very different Grand Prix, and a very different time for F1, without refuelling.
The strategic element of refuelling gained even more significance in 2003 when race fuel qualifying was introduced for the first time.
The idea of making drivers qualify with their race fuel load was to mix up the grid, and therefore the first stint of the race. It is an idea that has largely worked over the past six years. Renault, Toyota, and Red Bull enjoyed front row qualifying positions in 2008 thanks to running light tanks in qualifying. Although they never had a chance of finishing those races that high up, they prevented Ferrari and McLaren from dominating the Grands Prix lights to flag.
This current system of qualifying means that fuel strategy doesn’t just play a huge part on Sunday, but effects the whole weekend.
That is all going to change in 2010.
There are a number of immediate positives to come out of the ban on refuelling.
The first is that qualifying will be what it should be – an all out blast to extract maximum speed over a single lap. The fight for pole used to be something very special and was a true test of driving skill. It was the ultimate measure of a driver’s raw pace, which is why Ayrton Senna held more pole positions than anyone else for a very long time.
The art of qualifying has since been reduced to a strategic roll of the dice, and that is an awful shame. A ban on refuelling will remove the race fuel element and we’ll see drivers at their absolute limit once again.
Fantastic.
This won’t be at the expense of mixed grids though, because some cars will perform very well over one lap whilst others won’t.
In 2002, the last full season without race fuel qualifying, Juan Pablo Montoya claimed seven pole positions but did not win a single race. Part of this was Montoya’s own doing, but it was largely because his Williams was great over one lap but fairly average over a full race distance. It proves that you don’t need race fuel qualifying to mix up the grid because the cars that perform well over just one lap will do that anyway.
The strategic element won’t disappear from the sport either because drivers will still have to pit for tyres. Should you stop before your rival and get ahead of him on fresh rubber, or should you save it until the end of the race? There will still be a place for the likes of Ross Brawn.
Drivers will adopt one or two stop strategies dependant on tyre wear, but the actual pitstop window will probably be wider because they won’t need to stop due to an empty fuel tank. It’s unlikely that they’ll all pit together within the space of a few laps which will help maintain the strategic interest.
A ban on refuelling also solves the problem of pitting behind the Safety Car. The current rules, introduced in 2007, prevent drivers from taking on fuel when the Safety Car first hits the circuit. This is a major problem if you’re about to run out of fuel because you’ll have to cop a penalty, and it has turned a number of races into complete lotteries. This won’t be a problem when drivers have enough fuel on board to last the full race.
The end of fuel stops also means that drivers won’t have their races destroyed by faulty fuel rigs, which has happened all too often. Perhaps one of the reasons that teams were keen to get rid of refuelling is that they have no control over the equipment used and that is immensely frustrating in their world where quality is everything.
No-one deserves to lose a race due to a faulty fuel rig and in 2010 that will no longer be a concern.
There is a possible commercial benefit to a ban on refuelling as well for the oil companies because it puts more emphasis on the quality of their product. How often do we talk about Shell or Mobil helping Ferrari or McLaren win a Grand Prix? Never. However, there might be some marketing benefits for the oil companies if their fuel turns out to be the lightest or most efficient over a race distance.
The best thing to come out of the refuelling ban though is the safety benefit. Like many others I still get a chill down my spine when I watch footage of Jos Verstappen’s horrific pitlane fire at Hockenheim. The prospect of something like that happening again with far worse consequences is something that Formula One should be very afraid of. There have been no serious injuries resulting from a fuel spill and fire, but there have been plenty of close calls. A ban on refuelling removes that element of danger from a sport that has enough of it already.
A ban on refuelling will make qualifying a special skill once again, it will still produce slightly mixed grids, and it will remove the problem of pitting behind the Safety Car. Teams no longer need to worry about faulty rigs, the fuel companies could get a commercial benefit from the change, and the sport will be a great deal safer.
It seems hard to argue against it, but will the end of fuel stops improve the racing?
Possibly not. It might even have a negative effect, although there are plenty of pros and cons.
Some fans will argue that fuel stops encourage drivers to forget passing on the track because they can let strategy work for them instead. That is a valid point, but you could also argue that it is so hard to pass anyway and pitstops give the drivers a chance to improve their position they wouldn’t otherwise have.
If a driver knows he can pass his rival in the pitstops he won’t try anything risky on the circuit. That is a fact, but it doesn’t mean that fuel stops are preventing drivers from racing one another because sometimes they actually force the issue. If you are caught behind a slower heavier car on a different strategy, you simply have to get past him or your race will be ruined. You don’t have long to do it either, so you better get cracking!
Look at the drivers that had to muscle past Jarno Trulli during the Singapore Grand Prix. They were forced to make those moves because of refuelling, not in spite of it.
You could argue that fuel strategies actually make the racing more exciting, and cite this year’s Turkish Grand Prix as an example. Hamilton would not have overtaken Massa for the lead of the race had he been on the same fuel load, and Felipe would have taken the win unchallenged. Their different strategies produced a thrilling battle.
Perhaps the biggest point of all is that a ban on refuelling creates the risk that F1 could become too much of an ‘economy formula’. Drivers will only need to pit for tyres, which places a huge emphasis on conserving their rubber. There is no doubt that F1 pilots will be taking it much easier in 2010 than they do now.
Is that something we really want to see?
Many F1 fans, myself included, would rather see the fastest driver win a race and not the driver who looked after his tyres the most. After all, Grand Prix racing is about speed, it isn’t about taking things easy. There will be more of an advantage for drivers who adopt a Le Mans style attitude and look after their car, and although it might not be enough of an advantage to win them races, it is an advantage none the less.
Driving quickly whilst looking after tyres is a great skill, but should it be the most important skill in a sport that’s all about going fast?
In the 1980’s drivers often took it very easy at the start of a Grand Prix in order to save their tyres and brakes. They didn’t race each other with vigour or push until the late stages of a race, and it would be a shame if that were to happen again. At the moment a Grand Prix is a battle from the very first second until the very end, and the intensity lasts for the full race distance. It’s brilliant.
The last thing we want is for a Grand Prix to resemble a stage of the Tour De France where everyone takes it easy for several hours before sprinting like mad at the very finish.
A ban on refuelling might not result in a race for economy over speed, but it is still a risk.
The other thing to consider is that refuelling has added excitement to many races that would otherwise have been high speed parades. If you have a boring processional Grand Prix that is decided only by the fuel stops, you will want to keep those fuel stops because without them you would simply have a boring processional Grand Prix.
Imagine a two hour race around Valencia with everyone on the same fuel load unable to overtake. No thanks.
There are plenty of good things to come about from a ban on refuelling, but they might not all have a positive effect on the racetrack itself. There are so many pros and cons that it will be difficult to evaluate exactly what sort of impact the demise of fuel stops will have on modern Formula One.
In just over a year we’re going to find out.