Your view on the pit strategies

[luke]

What are your views on the on the pit strategies by the teams in recent races?
The different pit strategies definitely make for exciting racing ad give the chance for other teams to play around and hopefully gain on track position.
This played a big part for the mid-field rookie runners at the second round of this years Champ Car race at Monterrey where we saw rookies dicing it out such as Wirdheim and Ranger who chanced fuel strategy due to the number of more cautions than usual and therefore made they're way with the leaders and kept the pace.
We nearly saw 2003 F3000 Champions Bjorn Wirdheim win on only his second Champ Car start but feel to the back in the last couple of laps due to tire wear and straight-lined the one of many chicanes with rough and unkindly kerbs and that let race winner Bruno Junqieria into the lead.
Ranger found his way up to second, Bjorn ran out of fuel at the last corner.
Now this made for exciting racing no doubt and surely if the teams feel they can make the distance with more less stop and risk it out as they have nothing to lose then surely they are entitled to.
We also saw this at Portland in June the fourth round of the Champ Car World Series this year.
Wilson had the pace and deserved the race win in what would have been his first Champ Car victory but had a mechanical failure.
Da Matta with his experience from his and team played with the pit strategy and decided to go out of sink with the race leaders which you can do at a road course and not fall a lap down where as this would happen at an oval where you would roughly move down two laps.
Then if a caution period was to happen then the leaders would pit and not lose and track position and have the lap advantage over you still. On a road course if you were to pit out of sink or before a caution then this would play into your advantage as you would already have made a pit stop and then when the lead pack came into pit lane then you would take the lead and shuffle up to the lead for the re-start this is what 2002 Champ Car champion and former Toyota F1 driver da Matta did and won the race from no where.
Does this bring out an undeserving victory? I spouse luck pays off and it balances out as the next weekend da Matta crashed lapping a back marker whilst firmly and deservingly in the lead.
You decided.

[macdaddy]

The abolishment of the "mandatory stops" has brought much of the excitement back into ChampCar racing. I'll admit that I was all-for it when they initially suggested it, because to me it looked good on paper, but it proved to not work at all.

However, we again stand the chance that somebody's going to win a race who really doesn't deserve to. I instantly think of a relative of Mario's, who won by virtue of stopping on (what seemed like) every-other lap. But you gotta take the good with the bad.

I enjoy that there are effectively four factors that can win you a race.
- Skill
- Luck
- Pit Crew
- Strategy

When pit stops were mandated, there was little use for strategy.

[Snrub]

It's a trade off. You trade some interest for just outcomes. IMO most of the time people who gamble on wacky fuel stratagies don't come out way ahead. I think it adds an element of interest and sometimes like with CDM's win, it is just. If the passing is tough, there needs to be another way for interesting things to happen. If someone can make a stratagy work through good driving then I don't necessarly care if someone who drove slightly better came in 2nd.

[Hazza]

I agree with Macdaddy apart from the relative of Mario comment, I mean, really for every lucky vitory he had he had about 5 or 6 victories taken away from him. But as far as bad wins, I felt that Dominguez's in 2002 @ Surfers was pants. And that was even using the pit window rule.

However, I think they should have some dead stick rule like Nascar has, ie: if you run out or are running out of petrol you can come in under yellow for a splash and dash to keep going, as you'd then drop down the end of the field, and THEN have to pit when the pits open up to fully fuel up.

[Snrub]

I thought Michael's victory a few years back was quiet entertaining and I didn't mind that he won. He truely kicked some butt to make it happen, it wasn't a gift like Dominguez's first win.

I dunno. I think if you run out of fuel, that's your problem. There's a happy medium between the near no yellows in F1 and constant yellows. Hense why I think if you run out of fuel you should be out of the race unless your own crew can pull you in. (eg you're in the pits)