Refuelling is dangerous and unnecessary. It is perfectly possible to build a car with a cell big enough to hold the fuel needed for an entire race, so why do we have a situation that involves a highly inflammable liquid being pumped at high pressure into a car that's bristling with extremely hot components? Hmmm. Maybe that's not such a smart idea.
And while we're on the subject, remember that the only reason the ban on refuelling was lifted in the first place was for the dubious reason of enhancing the spectacle of the sport. Firstly, there are easier, better and safer ways of achieving that goal (and god knows we've ranted about these enough on this page) and secondly if there is a risk involved in racing, shouldn't the brunt of that risk be borne not by the mechanics but by the drivers, who are handsomely rewarded for their bravery? The sport has been fortunate not to have experienced more accidents during refuelling and the pit-lane is a dangerous enough place without adding the risk of fire to the proceedings.
Thanks to refuelling, grands prix these days are effectively chopped up into a series of two, three or more sprint races, with tyre wear being the major factor that affects a car's handling between these stops. As the fuel is used, the weight of the car does reduce but not by a significant amount - the cars don't carry that much fuel to start with. This weight difference only really influences the car's acceleration, not its handling. However, when cars have to start with a fuel load that is sufficient to last a whole race, that extra weight is enough to impact the car's handling over the course of a race. Drivers are therefore obliged to set up their cars so that they will handle reasonably well no matter if the fuel tank is full, empty or at some level in between. Set-up is therefore necessarily a compromise and the end result is a race in which different cars handle best at different stages in the race. A given car's lap times will fluctuate as the race wears on: cars that were happy with brimming tanks become much more of a handful as the fuel is burnt and vice versa. So guess what? We get more overtaking. Did you hear that, Max?
This leads us to the bewildering conclusion that, although the sole justification for bringing back this hazardous practice in the first place was to spice up the action on track, it actually has the opposite effect and yet another skill that drivers previously had to hone has been removed from the equation. Utterly ludicrous.
In addition, races have been affected because drivers have experienced fuel rig failures during pit-stops. Teams are issued with the rigs and are strictly forbidden from tampering with them in any way (for what are laughably referred to as "safety reasons"), which makes the fuel rig one of the few pieces of equipment a team will use over which it has no control. At the very least, this is grossly unfair to the teams and drivers concerned and any way you look at it, it's another reason for getting rid of the damned things.
A final thought: the potentially disastrous fire that engulfed Jos Verstappen and his pit crew at Hockenheim in 1994 was caused by just three litres of fuel escaping from the refuelling hose. The fuel rigs used in Formula One are capable of delivering 12 litres every second... |
