F1 2011 ran out of fuel

[Roger Snead]

Hello to all. I have not been playing with fuel on, but tried it last night w/ fuel ON.Career Short w/e, w/ damage full, tc med, no abs, 30% race in heavy rain. I did Qually w/ 10 laps of fuel. Got pole (pro AI) Set up car and was unable to adjust fuel for race. Started w/ full tank (60 laps on standard mix) I was able to switch to Rich setting in race
How is it I ran out of gas on lap 14? Does car load for race w/ amount of fuel loaded in Qually? (the 10 laps) It showed 60 laps loaded for race. You can not add fuel while in race...correct? Thanks

 

[ENDR]

It says before the race that you have enough fuel for a 100% race (60 in case of that particular track), but in fact you have less, if you're doing shorter races. You get enough to do the whole race length using the balanced engine map.
The "Rich" setting uses more fuel, so you can't do the whole race on it. You can use it for a few laps (how much depends on the track and your driving style) to catch up with another driver or build a gap, but usually it requires "balancing" it out with a few laps on "Lean" engine map. Most of the race you should do on the balanced setting.
The info panel on your HUD contains information on how much fuel you've got left. "+3", "+2" or "+1" mean that on current engine setting you can do more laps than it's needed to finish the race. Negative values mean the opposite. Beware of the "optimum" value - it means that you're likely to run out of fuel on the very last lap of the race.
A few days ago I did a short race at Spa and I ran out of fuel on the very last chicane - it's NOT fun to be robbed of a race win this way

 

[Roger Snead]

Excellent easy to understand explanation. Many thanks.

 

[cueceleches]

I usually race 50% distance. I set rich mixture until my first pit stop, then normal mixture through almost the end of the race. Often, with a few laps remaining, I can set again rich mix. This way I´ve never ran out of fuel. It has worked for all tracks.

 

[Roger Snead]

Good info. Thanks.

So.....with fuel sim ON, it seems to be a win/win situation, as you can run Qually with low fuel loads for better times. And with it OFF, you are running Race with a full load, instead of 30% or 50% Correct?

 

[Peter Hooper]

I usually race 50% distance. I set rich mixture until my first pit stop, then normal mixture through almost the end of the race. Often, with a few laps remaining, I can set again rich mix. This way I´ve never ran out of fuel. It has worked for all tracks.

I rarely find I can do that. In our league we run 75% distance and you have to be very careful how much you use mix 3 and balance that out by running mix 1 a fair amount. Even running mix 2 would not last the entire race if you kept it at that level for the duration.

 

[kenken]

I've checked fuel calculations. The remaining fuel is below 1.0(unit is unknown, but I believe it's kg), your engine starts loosing power, then you are completely lost power at 0.1.
It seems that fuel indicator bases on simple equation (remaining fuel)/(average fuel consumption per lap) - (remaining laps).
The problem is this equation isn't considered engine starts to lose power at remaining fuel is 1.0.
The average fuel consumption per lap is about 2-3 depend on circuit, so if fuel indicator tells you fuel is optimal, then there is probability to slow your car down at 1/2 - 2/3 of final lap.

 

[Silver BENZ]

The safety car always saves the situation... After the SC and mix1 for some laps then can use mix3 easy... The last lap the fuel indicator starts blinking red, switch to mix1 and finish the race.