Kevin Bissell medal 5000 Super Mod 4 years 344 days ago (Last edited by
Kevin Bissell 4 years 344 days ago)
Joshua
There's a theory I've had about qualifying for a while. To start, I've been told that fuel economy and your practice laps determine your car(s) fuel load(s) for their qualifying lap. The principle of my theory is that more economical cars are slower on their laps. Similar to how we dictate our fuel loads for our strategy, I propose our car(s) quali fuel loads go by whole liters. They are filled up to first amount that allows the car to finish a lap without running out (e.g. a car needs 2.45L to complete a lap, so it gets 3L). As a result, if a more economical car isn't able to use a fuel load a liter less than one that is less efficient, it has more dead weight via the excess fuel, slowing it down over the course of the lap. Whether enough fuel means the car can't be empty as it hits the line, I'm unsure of (if a car needs only 2L of fuel for a lap, does it get 2L, or does it get 3L so it doesn't hit 0 at the line?)
Hi Joshua.
This is something Joey McLane hints at in the second part of his advanced guide. He talks about it in terms of race stint but as you say it may be equally as important in qualifying and is of course track dependant. The problem is that we don't know how much fuel is loaded for qualifying (is it all the same for all cars or does it depend on your FE?) how many laps the cars do (one flying lap or three - out/qualify/in lap) or how the sim calculates fuel remaining (is it calculated real time as the lap progresses or just once at the beginning of the lap).
All three of these will determine how FE may impact qualifying. Also remember that the relationship between FE attribute and Fuel Consumption is not a straight line, it's a curve. A much greater effect in terms of litres per kilometre is seen by increasing FE by 10dp from 20 to 30 than from 120 to 130.
