I am very pleased to read that finally refuelling is going to be banned. Racing will as a result return to the track. This is very good news. Pete
Easy simply stop wasting money ... maybe do something useful for the world like go and help the starving children in Africa. Think of the expensive of flying these unnecessary people all around the world to ruin a good race because the FIA says we need a pitstop. Pete
Seemingly they are just trying to destroy the true meaning of F1, to innovate and to race at the highest standard! It will be soon that formula 2 car laps formula 1 car faster around the track!!!!!! God help us, the dudes in FIA has gone nuts They should also rename the formula one to WWF Formula Series, since they are so environmental friendly now! This is bull**** man!
Not really... Another technical advantage to be enjoyed by any 'cost regulated team' next year will be the doubling of Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems' power output assuming any team opts to take that route. Close followers of the championship were spending Thursday afternoon poring over the newly published FIA 2010 regulations, featuring basically unchanged technical rules for teams opting not to sign up to the optional budget restraints. Those willing to be limited to £40 million (45m) will however benefit from free-revving engines, a relaxation of testing restrictions and moveable wings. It also emerged that they will be allowed to use KERS outputting 120 kilowatts, while the 'free-spending' teams are limited to just 60kw. Realistically, it remains to be seen how any potential new entry or independent team could fund its own KERS programme given the cost restraints. Like the removal of rev-limits on the V8 powerplants, it is likely that the major manufacturers will be targeted to develop and adapt the technology for the customer teams, something that will undoubtedly be up for discussion within the FOTA ranks. Williams and McLaren on Thursday responded to the FIA's confirmation of the £40m voluntary budget cap essentially saying that the Formula One Teams' Association will discuss the rules, while Ferrari did not want to comment.
What has refuelling a stationary car got to with racing at the highest standards? There is no need to refuel, it was bought in because Bernie thought it would make his TV show more interesting. It doesn't and has ruined the racing. Pete
I look forward to seeing them develop better fuel economy in order to get to the end of a race on a single tank, even if it is bigger. Qualifying should be closer as well since everyone is going to be qualifying on full tanks, I assume. I wish they would also go back to the format they had in 2005 with no tire changes unless you had a puncture, but if it stays the same as now with two compounds to be used during the race, it will add an interesting variable during qualifying and race.
Interesting. So whats to stop a team like Ferrari to also sign up for the £40 million budget, spend the rest of the money as they will as a 'test bed' A1GP car? 22K RPM qualifying laps here we come!
That's what I don't understand. My feeling was that Ferrari could spend £200M on winning Le Mans but most of the R&D would be done in areas that also 'happen to' be relevant to the F1 team. ??? Regarding fuel I think they should enforce the budget cap on all teams but allow them complete technical freedom that would encourage fuel economy. If a 2009 F1 car uses 30,000L of fuel in a season (racing and testing) then the FIA should say the teams can use whatever engines they want in 2010 but they are allocated 25,000 Litres of fuel. The amount of fuel could then go down by 10% per year over the next 5 years. This would encourage the teams to produce powerful, but economical engines and they would also look seriously at Kers and any other ways of saving fuel. This would then directly benefit ordinary cars as the technology was passed down.
Got to thinking about this earlier this morning.....ban refuelling = what changes will be made (if any) to qualifying? I think they need to do away with Q1, Q2 and Q3 if they are at all interested in saving costs and do what the LMS, ALMS and others do - a 20 minute qualifying session PERIOD. Carol
Because it would be a lousy value for fans. LMS and ALMS events are generally longer races than F1. An F1 car used to do 3 or 6 laps in qual right at the end of the session, which is way they instituted the 3Q format. It forced the teams to run the cars. By banning refueling in the 3Q format the cars would have to be full of Q3 which would be the race fuel load and would still have to be on track.
Don't really like this idea, takes the excitement of "oooo the guy in front has to find 2 more seconds to come out of the pits infront of the other guy, which could cost him the race victory" i like that, now they're just going to follow each other for an hour and a half. Also doesn't this mean they will have to change last session qualifying because of the run with race fuel, if they do that next year they won't have enough fuel to finish the race.
LMS are always 1000km or 6 hours (usually 5h30-45m); shortest ALMS is Long Beach (waste of a race) at 1h40m - F1 needs go to back to the format of several years ago when qualifying was exciting instead of watching paint dry like it is now. 'Sir Enzo' is right on with his comment. Carol