Generally, there’s a system response lag in the continuously variable transmission system, and this leads to a deviation of the engine work point from the optimal operation line of the minimum fuel consumption. To reduce the influence of system response lag, a new CVT ratio control strategy with the system response lag parameter during computing target ratio is proposed. Simulation results indicate that the proposed control strategy can overcome the effect of system response lag, so as to keep the engine work point on the optimal operation line effectively. A comparison of fuel consumption is made between the proposed control strategy and the traditional one by simulation, and results indicate that the proposed control strategy reduces the fuel consumption of the system by 2.85％.