Red Bull’s chief engineer Paul Monaghan does not believe that next season’s increased fuel limit in Formula 1 will affect the competitive order.
Along with key aerodynamic changes aimed at making overtaking easier in 2019, the FIA will raise the fuel limit for a race distance from 105kg to 110kg. The intention is to prevent drivers from having to save fuel as often during races and promote more “full power” racing.
This was believed to be of an advantage to the teams who are less fuel efficient, but Monaghan estimates that the current competitive order will be unaffected, albeit with the fuel limit change being of benefit to the show.
“I don’t believe it will, no,” he said when asked if it would change the pecking order. “Let’s take the ideal scenario, by which the Red Bull is the quickest car next year. We’ll get first and second on the grid, other people will be behind us and then in the race you’ll have 110kg of fuel to burn.
“If we all need to lift off a certain amount at the beginning of the race then you’re not going to change the order very much. What will happen is, let’s say if our engine is less fuel efficient, then we won’t be lifting off but we will go off the line slightly heavier.
“If anything, what we will avoid is all the people lifting off the straights to try and save the fuel, which I think will be better for the overall spectacle.”
A step away from the fuel efficiency formula has served to reignite a debate as to whether F1 should return to refuelling during races. Refuelling was banned at the end of 2009.
“We looked at it a while ago,” Monaghan added. “I suspect all the teams’ strategies would converge on the same thing because you no longer have an ever-decreasing car weight, you reset every time.
“You‘ll pick the quickest way to do the race, the pit stops get a little bit longer, and if we all sit there doing the same thing then what we have done is to put a big valve in the side of the car.”
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