The big rule change in this 2010 Formula One World Championship is the ban on-race refueling. How is that will have an impact on the drivers and teams?.
Lightning fast pit stops.
Even though refueling has been banned from this year races, but the pit stop will still be compulsory to the drivers. Drivers will have to use both set of tires (hard and soft compounds). Therefore it will make for a blistering fast pit stop. That is why Ferrari has been concentrating on this minuscule thing by testing a different type of wheel nuts. And Christian Horner (Red Bull Racing Team Principal) has said that their pit stop can be done in 1.8 sec!. That's as fast as a blink of an eye.
Fuel efficiency
By having a ban on refueling, the drivers (all 26 of them) will have to carry the maximum amount of fuel at the start of the race. But are they going to have an identical level of fuel on-board?. That question can be answered a simple NO. In 2009 season, we saw Mercedes engine has the upper hand above all of it's competitor in term of outright engine power, but Renault engine has trump all of the other engine in terms of efficiency.
This fuel efficiency of the engine will determine how much fuel each car will have to carry at the start of the race. The more efficient the engine is, the lighter the car will be at the start of the race. Fuel efficiency will bring lightness to the car, that's for sure.
Consistency and Pace.
In 2010 season, the right balance between consistency and pace is the holy grail of the season. If one team can find the right balance between consistency and outright pace, that team will sure will dominate the season. That's why we can't just look into one single hot lap to see the performance of the team. The most important thing to be had for all the teams is the car can have a very fast lap time in heavy and low fuel load.
To make things more complicated, the team will want their drivers to go all out on saturday evening on qualifying. And top 10 teams that qualifies for Q3 will not have the luxury of changing their tires. And all of the set up of the car is prohibited in between the qualifying and the race. The demand for sunday will be for tyre preservation and consistency.
Less discrepancy from GP to GP.
If consistency is the main priority, then we will see the consistent performance of each teams from race to race. Unlike 2009 season whereby we will see less fluctuations in forms through the season depending on different characteristics of circuits and relative speeds.
Better safe than sorry driving
If fuel efficiency is the most important thing for the teams, then tyre preservation will be the most important thing for the drivers. Those who are gentle with their tyres will have significant advantage toward the end of their stint, rather than driver that are hard or worse, wreck their tyres will be sitting ducks.
But lets not have the perception that this season's race will be slower, it is after all is still the pinnacle of motorsport, and thus they will likely be faster than what our eyes can see...
Front wing trumps double diffuser.
If last year all eyes are on the double diffuser that has been introduced by Brawn GP, this year will see the significant of adjustable front wing. This can be seen in Mclaren team whereby they only introduced that device on the last test at Jerez at they have done really well (Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time of the practice). "We didn't have an adjustable front wing for most of the winter so it's been quite difficult doing long runs, because the way the car now work with the high fuel you are really adjusting the front wing a lot". commented Jenson Button.
Varied lap times
The very heavy fuel load (as much as 160 kg of fuel on board) at the start of the race will make for a significant difference in lap time at the start and the end of the race.The difference in lap time at the start of the race with the end of the race will be as much as 5 seconds. That's like century in Formula One terms.
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