Thread: AvGas
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Old 17 Jan 2011, 18:18 (Ref:2816925)   #2
Corktree
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Join Date: Mar 1999
United States
Posts: 52
Corktree should be qualifying in the top 10 on the grid
From what I have managed to gather, the formal decision to use Aviation Gasoline (130 Octane) for both the Formule Internationale and the Formule Internationale No. 2 was announced after the CSI meeting that ran from 8 thru 15 October 1957. Apparently, the technical committee had already decided to change from a free fuel to a gasoline fuel requirement about 12 to 18 months earlier to do so, but the issue of just what constituted commercially available gasoline had to be thrashed out. In the end, it was 130 Octane AvGas that was made mandatory.

In the Marques championship, the use of the highest grade of gasoline commercially available was directed, with the stipulation that the minimum Octane rating should that be at least 95 Octane, in which case AvGas could be used to boost the Octane to that minimum level.

Keep in mind that the Dino vee-six was designed from the start (1956) to use gasoline, which certainly suggests that the Ferrari team was aware of the direction that the technical rules were going.

At any rate, this should cast the conversion in a slightly different light, especially that regarding the Vandervell and Owen teams, the latter having relatively few problems as we now know.
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