![\"\u2018Fake](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Supercars-Sydney500-690.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFuel is a hot topic in Supercars. Image: InSyde Media<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFuel is a hot topic in Supercars. Image: InSyde Media<\/p>\n
Fuel economy and fuel saving have been big talking points this season.<\/p>\n
Supercars has carefully studied economy differences between marques, making mapping tweaks to help improve the Chevrolet ahead of Townsville and Perth.<\/p>\n
The tight nature of the current field has meanwhile put great emphasis on minimising pit stop time in order to gain or hold track position.<\/p>\n
That results in teams under-filling cars during stops and forcing their drivers to save fuel while on track.<\/p>\n
Cam Waters, whose Tickford team severely under-filled his car in Townsville due to a miscalculation, slammed fuel-saving as a \u201cshit way to go racing\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody is saving fuel these days,\u201d Erebus Motorsport boss Barry Ryan explained at Wanneroo on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cDrivers have to be really smart, engineers have got to be really smart. No one is racing flatout in the races any more.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome drivers are really good at saving fuel and some aren\u2019t. Some take bigger risks with how much fuel they drop in at a pit stop, so it\u2019s time in pit lane as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fuel debate has led to a push to reintroduce the minimum fuel drop rule, mandating an amount that must be put into each car during races.<\/p>\n
That rule was introduced early in the Car of the Future era to ensure parity between marques, before being removed during the Gen3 era to return freedom to teams.<\/p>\n
Supercars combined that with a move away from the fuel towers to churns for sprint races last season.<\/p>\n
Although affirming belief the pushrod Chevrolet remains at a disadvantage on economy, Ryan is adamant a return of a fuel drop is the wrong road.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not real big on fake racing stuff and that\u2019s fake racing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike CPS (compulsory pit stops) at Bathurst. It shouldn\u2019t be that. It should be 161 laps, get there as fast as you can.<\/p>\n
\u201cSame with every other race. The race should start and you just do what you can do. One stop, two stops, whatever you can do to win the race.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brad Jones, whose team runs a trio of Toyota Supras, is among those with an opposing view, pushing back on the suggestion fuel drops are \u201cfake racing\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, using these churns has taken a lot of strategy out of the races because everyone, well almost everyone, has to put the maximum amount of fuel in each time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s always things we could look at and learn and change and try. I think there\u2019s some work to be done there for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones echoed paddock belief that the new Toyota is currently in the middle of the pecking order when it comes to economy.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the moment it looks like the Ford is the most fuel efficient car and then the Toyota in the middle and then the Camaro, but I don\u2019t think there\u2019s much between them all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Supercars is known to be against reintroducing the fuel drop, which would require officials to carefully monitor the fuel going into each car at every stop.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fuel is a hot topic in Supercars. Image: InSyde Media Fuel economy and fuel saving have been big…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":834959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,9910,85],"class_list":["post-834958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-slot2","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=834958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/834959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=834958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=834958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=834958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}