So exchange one variable for another. Not sure what that achieves. Instead of conserving tyres, they conserve fuel. How would this be any different?

What difference would this make, the leading car will always have more downforce than the chasing car. The way to minimise the delta would be reducing aero which they have done.
The only way to reduce turbulence is smaller wings and therefore less downforce which would lead to slower racing. If that is what you want to see watch the BTCC instead.

Unless you have a moveable wing that is effected less by the turbulence and is activated when a car is close behind chasing anouther, ie DRS?

Bit that is no different to putting a set of options on, over a set of primes, surely? The racy driver can lob some sorts on, and do a stop or 2 extra, knowing they will have to stop again, as opposed to the conserved driver who puts on the harder tyres, and makes than last longer, saving a pit stop, and hopefully being ahead of the racy driver.

As I said, it is just another variable, and is therefore variable. Fuel gives just as much a difference as the tyres do.

Phil-CH, banning refuelling does not negate a performance differential. I understand from my tech research and reading is that it has been quite a large factor in speed differential at different points in the race. This is because the weight of the car changing dramatically affects the ride height, which affects downforce, tyre contact patch, temperature and geometry and so forth.

The weight of the car is changing by some 160-170kg. Previously with refuelling it would change by around 60kg or thereabouts.

The operating window in which the car has to operate efficiently is much wider and as such harder for the teams to pin down the best average performance over all weight/ride height conditions.

A good example of this was Mercedes last year, it clearly performed poorly on heavy fuel loads but came around a bit later in the race as the fuel burned off.

All this is without factoring in KERS, DRS race, DRS quali, tyres which complicate it and widen the operating range further on gear ratios, overall lift:drag ratios etc.

It's also why there was such a fuss over ride height control - the team's engineers knew that the changing ride height was compromising their speed and if it was more consistent they could make the car go faster.

One that would have them tearing their hair out would be an automatic barrier that each lap might open up to let a randomly chosen car, other than the leader, follow, say, the national circuit thus taking a shortcut.

How cool would it be if, say, Alonso has been working hard for the whole race, in the lead, and then on the last lap the gate lets the 8th place Force India leapfrog the lot and take the win

Refueling was anything but authentic and was a huge component of one of the dullest periods of f1 racing. The idea sounds good but it made for very little overtaking on the road resulted from it, even less for actual position.
2 hours is not enough for different strategies to have an impact beyond the infamous "pit overtake"
Glad to be rid, god forbid it ever returns.

Would love to see statistical breakdown of "average" start vs finishing position, I bet its phenomenally instructive, even more so when looking at on-track overtakes.

You mean someone did it for real? I'm afraid to mention guns and oil slicks then I'll YouTube it and see how they did it

Tyre maintenance/preservation has always been a part of racing, its the cliff they fall off that I would find annoying.

However, the durability of the tyres' main grievance with me is the amount of debris they shed off the racing line. Think about the great battles of F1 with Mansel, Piquet, Senna, Prost and the like going side by side for a whole lap. You just cannot go off line on a corner now after ~20 laps of a race or you will be off.

Well said sir

Jog on Schumie, talk about hypocrisy!

That is true. What my main criticsm is, is that all the teams progress through the same weight transistion; e.g. All cars start with 160-170kg more weight and gradually lose it as the race progresses. True, some cars are better set-up for minimal fuel condition (top qualifying performance), others for a better race. Given how the last two years have played out though, I'm not sure there is a lot of room there for alternating strategies.

Redbull have impressively shown how they can maximize a car that is strong in qualifying and how to maintain that gap over the extensive period of the race, perhaps even by under-fueling and managing that gap to ensure victory. It is not beneficial to focus too much on how your car performs in the 1st third of the race if the only way to achieve that is to compromise qualifying and therefore be held up half way through the race by other cars. In other words - most cars that qualified in the top 10 are set up for lighter conditions and will never be challenged by cars that *may* be better set-up for 'heavy fuel' race-pace because they are further behind, stuck behind traffic on tyres that are hyper sensitive.

The tyres are the only variable here that force teams to pit-stop, make errors, lose time and introduce the 'strategic' element (beyond set-up for high or low fuel) and give you the situation on track where a car on strategy A might come across slower car on strategy B. The problem then is, - and this is effectively what M. Schumacher is criticizing IMO - if you push the tyres too much, you may overheat/damage your tyres, nullfying your strategic advantage in the process.

If this is the case - why would you want to find yourself *ever* on a strategy that sees you having to overtake others with 'better' tyres, if the overtaking (which would be crucial to maintain your strategic advantage) then compromises your tyres and as a result your strategy? The only way the FIA have found to minimize this effect is through 'overtake-assists' - DRS and KERS - which again work on some tracks better than on others and also influence that most overtakes take part on 1 or 2 parts of the track.