Quote:
Originally Posted by HarveyMushman
I wonder what drives the need for such fuel saving? I assume the cars’ fuel tanks are regulated to a certain capacity, yes? Is each car limited in the total amount of fuel it can use during a race? Was Rubens’ team simply trying to minimize stops? Are there political/marketing factors at work, i.e., is IndyCar trying to be “green” by encouraging better fuel economy from its cars?
It’d be one thing if a fast driver/team made the decision to save fuel in an effort to skip a fuel stop, and quite another if all the fast drivers/teams are cruising around at 80% throttle—not racing—because they have to, for whatever reason.
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Good questions. They did
reduce the size of the fuel tank this season, from 22 to 18.5 gallons. The new car package is intended to reduce fuel consumption (a goal that seems a bit silly to me.)
I think every car in the field was in fuel-saving mode for the entire race, based on the radio transmissions we heard.
I can only assume the obvious -- it has something to do with race distance versus fuel capacity/fuel consumption and the number of stops required.