Of all the decisions announced following the FIA World Motor Sports Council meeting this week, the most contentious in the long term is likely to be one that attracted some of the least publicity on Wednesday morning.
Inevitably the three race suspended ban handed out to McLaren for the Melbourne ‘lie-gate’ was the big story emerging from the meeting (and let’s hope that’s the last we hear of that subject and let’s also hope, possibly in vain, that henceforth all scandals are not tagged with the entirely jaded ‘–gate’ appendix..).
Meanwhile the surprising ease with which a consensus was arrived at it for the £40 million budget cap is perhaps the real story behind the news that grabbed most of the headlines from the rule changes announced for 2010.
However, it is the confirmation that refuelling is banned from the start of next season that could well be the biggest revolution in Formula 1 racing, given how integral it is to the flow and rhythm of a Grand Prix.
Ever since Gordon Murray, Bernie Ecclestone’s chief boffin at Brabham back in the eighties, spotted a gap in the rule book that allowed refuelling and gave his thirsty BMW turbo engine an opportunity to really exploit the power at its disposal, regular visits to pit lane have been the order of the day.
A legion of F1 fans have grown up discussing the strategy the teams employ and working out complicated scenarios involving differing fuel loads. With the advent of race fuel in Q3 and the fuel weights being made public this season, there has been another outlet for the number crunchers among the F1 cognoscenti and tifosi alike.
More than anything, differing strategies between cars has offered overtaking opportunities that often don’t exist on track. Maybe, as some have suggested, drivers avoid overtaking attempts believing that their pit wall engineers will construct a leapfrog strategy that will avoid the danger of a do or die manoeuvre.
Then again, maybe jumping another car in the pits is the only chance of one car getting past another, regardless of adjustable front wings and KERS systems. Well, we’re going to find out. There will, of course, still be pit stops as the switch to different compound Bridgestones will still be an element in the tactical, but the defending driver will find it easier to mirror the tactics of his rivals and cancel out any aggressive strategy.
We’ll also, of course, lose the variable of different weights in qualifying so the chances of Toyota locking out the front row in front of the boss man from Japan are somewhat reduced.
It’s certainly going to be a new world for F1 next season but reduced budgets is just one element of the whole revolution and the one that will probably have the least impact on the visual experience for the F1 fan.