Did the new refuelling rules for F1 work in Bahrain?

This years Bahrain GP saw the introduction of a new rule, that the teams can’t refuel the car once it has left the pit lane for the race. This means that the cars must carry enough fuel for the entire race from the start. This means extra weight in the car for the whole distance and the end of the short sprints between pit stops.

When the rule was announced it was unclear what it would achieve in terms of improving the action but it seems the goal was to get rid of the sometimes confusing middle section of the race where different drivers are on different strategies and aren’t really racing each other. The teams are still required to run both tyre compounds during the race so the cars have to stop at least once but that stop can happen at any point in the GP now as the window isn’t restricted by the fuel load.

So how did this play out at the first race of the season? Well it seems that it was a massive failure, without the fuel stops everyone hung on to the tyres for as long as they could and then changed them, the only places that changed were ones due to the new rule in the pit lane that a car can’t be released once another gets within 55m of the pit box – this meant the both McLarens jumped the driver in front. The new rule just seemed to mean that there was no phase of the race where you felt that anything could happen outside of a car breaking.

Some of this may be due to the nature of the Sakhir circuit with it’s new longer lap the track seemed to be dulled somewhat. The extra section of the track didn’t improve either the lap times or the action and reduced the potential for brake issues by reducing the number of laps and therefore big stops, Vettel who had power issues would have struggled much more he’d had 10 more acceleration zones to go through. This longer track meant that the laps were almost all over two minutes and so that probably meant that the processional element was exaggerated but I can’t really see how it would have been any different anywhere else.

It seems that we may be in for a season where the drivers make their pit stop early in the race to cover off what the other drivers are doing and then drive to the finish. With how difficult it is to overtake in F1 now it seems that this will lead to drivers simply following each other around the track, Monaco will probably be the worst example. It will also see drivers that get out of position being boxed in by slower cars and not able to do anything about it for the whole race, not just until the next round of stops so qualifying will be extra important.

It seems that the new rule hasn’t had the wanted effect so far – perhaps it will get better as the teams and spectators get used to the new rules but something may have to be done to avoid a dull season.

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