F1's brand new world

By Steve Slater

AS WELL as the intriguing prospect of Michael Schumacher's comeback, this weekend's opening round of the 2010 Formula One season may offer a fundamentally different style of racing to what we have seen over the past few years.

One of the most biggest changes to the rules in decades - the banning of in-race refuelling - gives all but two drivers a brand-new challenge (read new F1 rules here).

This year will be the first since 1993 in which the cars will be required to run the entire race on a single tank of fuel.

Only veterans Rubens Barrichello and Schumacher, whose F1 careers both began back in 1991, have any experience of the inevitable challenges of driving the heavily loaded racers.

The cars will start the race with as much as 250 litres of fuel on board, more than three times the 80 litres carried at the start of most races in recent years.

The weight of that extra fuel will mean that drivers will have to carefully judge their braking points in the opening laps, when the cars are at their heaviest. Over-aggressive driving early in the race could cause problems with premature tyre and brake wear later, while the changing fuel load will see some drivers handle better (or worse) than their rivals as the race progresses.

Strategies will also be affected by another new rule. Cars which reach the final top-10 shoot-out in qualifying must start the race on the same tyres they've used for the qualifying session.

In other words, a team can gamble on using a high-grip, soft-compound tyre which is potentially faster in qualifying, but will degrade faster with the heavy fuel load at the start of the race. Alternatively they may choose the more robust, harder compound, but this may limit their pace over a single flying lap.

Some pundits have wondered whether the heavier fuel load will make the cars more dangerous, but I don't think so. The fuel tank is located in the centre of the car, as far away as possible from likely damage. The tank itself is made from a flexible material and is filled with a special foam, which actively resists burning. Frankly, the old pit-lane refuelling systems were a far bigger safety hazard than the bigger fuel tanks.

The new rules don't mean that the pit lane will be any less hectic this season. The cars will still need to stop once, or most probably twice each race to change tyres and without the need to refuel, the pit stops will be spectacularly quick.

Ferrari already claim to have made the first pit stop, changing all four tyres in just 2.5 seconds. Certainly a sub-four-second stop seems to be the norm.

Of course, the most frequently asked question in the past weeks has been: 'Will Schumacher make a winning comeback?'

My answer is that a win in Bahrain is certainly possible, but less than probable. Quite simply, the top four teams - Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull and Schumacher's Mercedes team - are simply too closely matched to make predictions.

stsports@sph.com.sg

This article was first published in The Straits Times.

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