A minimum fuel intake has been a staple of the Supercars rulebook across the Car of the Future era, initially introduced to offset fuel economy concerns when the likes of Nissan and Volvo joined the series.
As it stands the rule requires teams to take run at least 140 litres of fuel into the 111-litre tanks during any race with two mandatory pitstops.
The rule proved decisive during last Saturday's opener in Adelaide, where Walkinshaw Andretti United was able to satisfy the fuel drop during a safety car and could two-stop when most others needed three.
That helped Chaz Mostert and Nick Percat to a one-two finish.
The fuel drop has, from a technical perspective, become largely irrelevant in the past few years with the Volvos and Nissans disappearing from Supercars.
And while there will be different types of engines for Gen3, with the Mustang powered by a quad-cam motor and the Camaro a pushrod motor, the cars will have a significantly larger fuel cell with a volume of over 130 litres.
However Supercars still has no plans on dumping the minimum drop rule in at least the short term.
That, according to Head of Motorsport Adrian Burgess, is down to both wanting to properly assess consumption parity, and keep the strategic options provided by the drop open.
"First of all, this is a byproduct of the homologation process – making sure we've got fuel consumption, car-to-car, to a tolerance where you could get rid of the notion if you wanted to," he said.
"But for me, and for the teams, it's probably more about keeping the strategy options available. Having the fuel drop makes them come in and take fuel, as opposed to pitlane time being purely based on tyre changes.
"You change the dynamic of a race, and the strategy, by having a fuel drop component. It's not just based on fuel used, it's really the impact on strategy."
What isn't yet clear is what the fuel drop number will be, with Supercars opting to focus on the homologation and build of the next-gen cars before it gets into the nitty gritty of the rule book.
"We haven't got our number," said Burgess.
"The fuel cell in the new car is 25 per cent bigger. It's going to be a 133-, 134-litre fuel cell.
"So the amount we'll require as a drop... we need to get through what we're doing to then have a bit of headspace to nut out how we want to try and race the car. At the moment we're just focussed on building them and getting them paritised.
"Those small little details, we can come to a little bit later on. But we want it there as a strategy option.
"It's likely to be less because you'll start the car with another 30 litres than we currently have. And because you've lost 50 horsepower, [the engines] don't need as much fuel. They are more economical because power is air and fuel, at the end of the day."
Outside of the fuel strategy races, the new, larger fuel tank will open the door for Supercars to extend the length of the races used for SuperSprint rounds.
However, for the timing being, the plan is for sprint races to stick to the 110-130 kilometre range.
"[Longer sprint races] is an option for us," said Burgess.
"The reason you go bigger on volume [of the fuel cell], as opposed to smaller, is that you open up all your options. Whether its race distance, strategy, it just gives you more variables.
"The priority for Supercars is to get the cars built and let's go racing. Then we'll tweak as we learn the car and operate the car. Maybe for 2024 we'll start to be a bit more adventurous with things.
"But at the moment consistency, and a known format and known product outside of the car, is probably the more sensible approach than coming up with harebrained ideas."
