Is Banning Refuelling a Mistake?

If they wanted an extra race in Spain, why didn’t they just use the permanent track in Valencia, rather than, to quote Mark Webber, "a boring, boring street circuit" that threads its way through old warehouses?  Last years race was straight forward monotony for the casual fan. 

This one was better, but only because of the strategic contest between McLaren and Brawn GP. Lewis Hamilton and Rubens Barrichello traded fastest laps through out the race, but particularly up until the second round of pit stops.

It didn’t make for an action packed spectacular, but it at least made it an interesting race, one where you were not sure who would be the winner.  Of course after the second round of pit stops you were pretty sure of the places as overtaking is so hard even if Lewis tried to catch Rubens, but Barrichello drove his best race of the year.

Perhaps this is why I find FOTA’s decision to ban refuelling for next year one of their biggest errors.  So far they haven’t introduced any new regulations that may make it easier for the drivers to pass each other, and some of the tracks don’t help either, so I can only wonder at the tedium that awaits us next year.

Now in Formula One, we have always had our exciting races, our interesting ones and our dull ones.  We will continue to have exciting races, of that there is no doubt.  But could we have an increase in the dull processional ones?

In 1994 refuelling was introduced to add an extra strategic element.  It could be justified that doing that resulted in less on track passing as people waited for the stops, but seeing as many times they couldn’t get past anyway, then at least refuelling gave an opportunity for some change of the order.

However, I can’t just look at the pessimistic point of view.  There are other elements.  If we just take this year’s European Grand Prix, had there been no refuelling we perhaps could have seen a train of cars form behind Heikki Kovalainen, or even Lewis Hamilton. 

The McLaren’s were obviously not as good with a full fuel load hence why they were lighter. Barrichello could keep up with more fuel onboard, so if they were all running on full fuel loads, Barrichello may well have been right on the tail of them, ducking and diving, at least having a go.  As the race went on the McLaren’s would have picked up the pace perhaps coming back at Rubens as the race went on, and presuming he had got past.

Two sides to the story obviously, but the main point is how likely would it be for Rubens to have got past in the first place?  Although I’m sure the pit stop element will still be important with tyres, but after a few races I’ll be surprised if all the teams aren’t doing six second changes easily so little advantage would be gained.

Perhaps after 2010 they may consider halving those fuel tanks again, at least it can make a dull race potentially interesting, especially when two drivers are punching in fastest laps to make the gap rather than saving fuel, even on a street track like Valencia!