The FIA has revealed the fuel loads with which all 20 cars will start the Australian Grand Prix. James Allen analyses the data here.
The fuel weights have been published by the FIA for the first time, under the new rules for this season.
There are some very interesting things here.
For a start the Brawn cars are, as we expected, massively quick, given that Jenson Button’s car has 22 laps worth of fuel in it (59 kilos).
Rubens Barrichello will go one lap longer, to 23. This is a long first stint for a two-stop strategy.
Knowing this we can say that Jenson did a stunning job today in the final part of qualifying as the smaller amount of fuel he’s carrying will have given him less than a tenth of a second of lap time compared to Rubens and yet he is three-tenths faster.
Rubens liked the car more on low fuel in the early part of qualifying, Jenson liked it more in heavy fuel mode. He will be on his own tomorrow in the race.
Sebastian Vettel, who qualified third, will go to lap 20, the same as Nico Rosberg.
This means that the Red Bull is a couple of tenths faster than the Williams.
Meanwhile the Ferraris are in trouble: Felipe Massa has only 18 laps of fuel in his car and yet he was 0.8s off Button, who has 0.3s of a weight disadvantage.
That puts the Ferrari more than a second slower in qualifying trim today.
Kimi Raikkonen has a similar amount as his team-mate and was a tenth slower.
Robert Kubica’s lap looks less stellar when you realise that he is running light – he will be stopping on lap 17.
Button should control the race; reliability is his only competitor tomorrow.
Barrichello has more than enough speed to stay ahead of Vettel and Rosberg who will be fighting for a podium.
Massa moves forward to sixth on the grid after Timo Glock’s exclusion and he has a shot at a podium from there to get his championship campaign off to a strong start.
The Ferrari should prove a faster race car than it was a qualifier here.

source[www.itv-f1.com]

note: the curious case of Jenson Button indeed I thought he'd be light, Brawn GP will definately be on the podium

 

Come on Button... Ross Brawn is the MAN. Just ask a certain M. Schumacher.

 

is this new? i remember the speed guys always guess what the fuel loads were

 

I think this is pretty recent.

 

Yeah, new rule this year that says the teams must publish fuel loads before the race.

This is really incredible news! Things are changing guys! We're about to witness history in the making! The new world order of Brawn GP is upon us!

 

or Brawn is a one hit wonder and the big boys will be back up front next race.

the person who wins our fantasy league will probably be the one who guesses the right time to pick up Ferrari and McLaren right before they start to dominate again

 

This is my hunch also...

 

Good article Hamad. Thanks for sharing

 

Damn, luckily i picked Button and vettel for the fantasy league.

 

The Teams always knew what the weights were of all the cars as it was published to them in previous years, and as such it usually filtered down to to the media through various sources. This year it just published straight to the media aswell.

Pos. Driver Car weight
1. Jenson Button 664.5kg
2. Rubens Barrichello 666.5kg
3. Sebastien Vettel 657kg
4. Robert Kubica 650kg
5. Nico Rosberg 657kg
6. Felipe Massa 654kg
7. Kimi Raikkonen 655.5kg
8. Mark Webber 662kg
9. Nick Heidfeld 691.5kg
10. Fernando Alonso 680.7kg
11. Kazuki Nakajima 680.5kg *
12. Heikki Kovalainen 690.6kg
13. Sebastien Buemi 675.5kg
14. Nelson Piquet 694.1kg
15. Giancarlo Fisichella 689kg
16. Adrian Sutil 684.5kg
17. Sebastien Bourdais 662.5kg
18. Lewis Hamilton 655kg
19. Jarno Trulli 660kg
20. Timo Glock 670kg

Thats the weights, min weight of 605kg. Also anyone outside of the top ten are able to start on a different weight than their qualifying weight.