F1 drivers split on traction control ban
For those who think this is shaping up to be an exciting F1 season, next year should be a stunner. The FIA has confirmed that traction control will not be allowed in 2008. With traction control about to be banned from F1, Formula One Drivers are split on the decision. Most have said they support the move, but most racers will usually say they prefer fewer electronic aids getting in the way of pure mechanical feel and control of the vehicle. At this level of performance, however, the drivers often like to talk a good game and downplay the significance of the devices. It's more driver skill, they'll tell you. But for some of today's drivers, electronics have been fitted to every car they have raced at this level of competition. The aids themselves have been used since 2001.
Follow the jump to see how some of the top drivers feel about this issue.
[Source: PaddockTalk]
Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen thinks "It's going to be more fun, although for sure it's going to make it more difficult to drive over the race distance, so it's not going to always be fun."
Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella seemed to echo those sentiments, saying "It's good to make it more difficult for the drivers."
Others, like David Coulthard, however, say we'll only see a difference in wet races: "I think in dry conditions, the driver has an in-built traction control system and that won't change."
Nico Rosberg, of Williams, basically said that traction control is given far too much credit: "I think you still need to control (the car) yourself with the foot occasionally," he said, "so it is not going to make a huge difference."
We probably won't learn the truth until testing for next season begins. In the meantime we're sure to hear stories like those about Super Auguri, that tell us some teams have been without traction control already. Even if it's only in the rain, we hope it makes enough of a difference to justify the change, and add even more excitement to the show.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
HotRodzNKustoms 7:15PM (4/12/2007)
Where is Gilles Villeneuve when you need him??? I am looking foward to seeing these F1 cars act a bit twitchier on exit and maybe if the gods of physics and the drivers brave enough we will see the occassional F1 car being steered with the throttle like the F-5000 cars used to.
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Proud Japanese 7:28PM (4/12/2007)
TC in the usual sense has been banned from F1 ages ago.
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Ian 7:49PM (4/12/2007)
Launch control(LC) has been banned, but until the standard series ECU is implemented in year 2008 all the cars use traction control(TC).
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kcombs 7:45PM (4/12/2007)
"TC in the usual sense has been banned from F1 ages ago."
Except, of course when it was un-banned in 2001.
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tbyron 7:57PM (4/12/2007)
Combine the standard ECU's w/o traction control with ultra-hard compound tires and reduced aero aids, and I will be back to being an enthusiastic fan of F1. Most of the really great races for TV spectators of the past few years have involved rain.
If it were not for TiVo, I am certain that I wouldn't trouble myself to get up in the wee hours to watch these races like I used to 10 yrs ago.
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Harrison 8:12PM (4/12/2007)
I want to see drifting action in the F1 cars.
Then Super Aguri could hire some D1 drivers and basically drift the whole damn race and hide their crappy-ness using drift.
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Carl 8:14PM (4/12/2007)
I think 25 yo Heikki Kovalainen won a lot of new fans with this statement in this afternoon's press confrence:
HK: I think it’s absolutely the way to go (Removing TC). Let’s just stick in a third pedal, a clutch pedal under your feet and put in the old H-box; that’s the way to go in F1!
http://www.fia.com/mediacentre/Press_Information/F1/Press_Conferences/2007/Bahrain/bah_conf1.html
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TheChaz 8:38PM (4/12/2007)
kcombs is right - The FIA was forced to un-ban traction control because with out a standardized ECU, the teams were just using it anyway. It was simply to difficult to go through all the code on each team's ECU to determine if they contained TC instructions. As they say, if you're not cheating, you're not trying.
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El Tiante 9:03PM (4/12/2007)
The best thing they could do for F1 is to remove the wings.
Good Racing = More power than grip
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Mike 10:31PM (4/12/2007)
#9 & #7: You're nuts. I would never ask for the H-box back just because of driver safety. Taking your hands off the wheel at 180 mph is a death sentence. An removing the wing? C'mon now. doing things to make cars less safe and increase the danger/crashes in a sport doesn't make it more exciting, just a poor career choice for those involved.
I personally like the TC ban idea, it will force the driver to be more skillful. As for the standard ECU, I dunno. If a team can engineer a great program for their engine, why not let them as long as they follow the rules? The only reason they allowed TC back in 2001 was because so many teams has figured out how to control wheel spin through throttle-flickering using the ECU anyway.
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Anorexicpillow 2:10AM (4/13/2007)
It's good to see F1 will be going back to relying on the racer instead of the car. They need to find the perfect balance of man and machine and this is just another step in the right direction.
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infinitespecter 4:01AM (4/13/2007)
If ChampCar (which hasn't ever had TC to my knowledge) is any indication, absolutely nothing will change, and you won't be able to tell any difference at all. Everyone that has these ideas that the cars will be drifting around corners and visibly on the edge of control needs to get real. I'd be shocked if anyone even noticed that it was missing, even in the rain.
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sterndotstern 12:02PM (4/13/2007)
OMG Sato at Super Aguri is dooooooooomed!
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Brad 6:48PM (4/13/2007)
I don't know. I've always thought of F1 being an ultra high tech sport but I guess I can see the other side of this in that it will make it a more driver dependent form of racing.
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Spin 3:16AM (4/15/2007)
They could just put oil on the track. That would make it more exciting, I'm sure.
Seriously, F1 should be a testing ground for new technologies, that can make all cars safer.
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