34 replies to this topic

[Junior]

This might be better suited for the "Readers Comments" forum (and there's probably already a post on this over there), but frankly I'd rather hear some intelligent views on this. (Ie: something other then "Schumi sux" or "Mika sux" or "you sux" or... you get my point.)

After you read the article I copied below that I found on Speedvision's website today, I'd like to know what you think the impact (if any) of this might be on modern F1.

I was a bit too young to watch F1 back when traction control was the norm, so I'm not sure how it might've effected the competition within the sport.

Will this IMPROVE the specticle of F1 since the cars today's F1's are twitchy?

Will it stabilize the cars enough to make closer racing (and hence, overtaking) easier?

The F1 community lament the electronic aids that were prevalent in the sport for a while, so I assume this won't be a popular decision?


-----------------------------------------------------------

Traction Control Returning to F1

London, England, Nov. 11 — Traction control and associated electronic systems are poised to be back in F1 next season after its reintroduction was given a unanimous green light by the F1 Technical Working Group on Thursday.

After eight years wrestling with the problems of legislating against such control systems, the FIA is now prepared to give in to the engineers who say that such systems are impossible to police. The governing body has also written to the competing teams acknowledging that it is now satisfied that one or more teams were using traction control illegally "in 1998 and earlier."

Nobody is prepared to name the guilty parties – indeed they may not be certain of their identity – but the near-impossibilities of policing such systems have prompted the technical directors of all the teams to vote in favor of the readoption of traction control.

"I am in favor of such a development," said McLaren technical director Adrian Newey. "I am no great fan of traction control as such, but the fact that you have fuel and ignition systems on any car means that, in my view, if you have the mindset to cheat and use traction control, then the basic tools are in place for you to do so.

"I think it is a pragmatic and positive thing to do, because races have clearly been won in the past by cars using traction control, and this is an unacceptable situation."

It now remains for the F1 Commission to consider the matter at Monaco on Dec. 7, where it is expected to give its approval to such a move.

However, FIA president Max Mosley has mixed views on the prospect of reintroducing traction control. He believes that accelerated development of electronic systems could help F1 make a contribution to road safety. On the other hand, he has always believed that F1 is primarily a drivers' formula and that anything which minimizes the input of the man behind the wheel is not to be encouraged. — Alan Henry

[AyePirate]

Well, If you think traction contol ever went away,
(they call it engine mappingnow) there is a bridge in Brooklyn that I'd be glad to sell you.;)

This topic is actually be better off in the
Technical Forum

[mhferrari]

I was very young when traction control (8 when it went away), but as I see it, it would make mediocure drivers better and only improve better drivers a tad bit. It was around, the past few years, by FIAs admission. However, slicks and different looking cars would improve passing more than traction control, at least I believe.

[Bernd]

Formula 1 is turning into an absolute farce. I know why not add on with our now fully legal Traction Control. ABS, Active Suspension and CVT then we can drop our 15 Million a year driver and put a Chimpanzee in the cockpit he at least won't whine about the car being not quick enough and I'm sure the sponsors would love him. Seeing as the little fella can take more G's than a Man becuase of his size why not bring back Ground Effect as well Hell Yeah!

What in my opinion needs to be done.

1. Halve downforce with emphasis on front end downforce.
2. Reintroduce Slick tyres.
3. Reintroduce Manual Gearbox's. (Shifing is a fundamental part of Racecraft)
4. Increase Engine Capacity to achieve at least 1000BHP.
5. Change back Engine and Gearbox control to mechanical.
6. Increase Chassis width to increase stability.
7. Make design emphasis on mechanical grip not aero.
8. Abolish or at least phase back Chicanes.
9. Ban Carbon brakes. (Outbraking would return as a realistic passing option)
10. Increase Ride height slightly to further reduce downforce.

I think doing this would result in an incredibly exciting series. But we can but dream

Modern F1 More Motorcade than Motorsport!

[fines]

11. Inflate balls of drivers...

[mhferrari]

Giving me an F1 car gives you #11.

[Bernd]

Now that I think of it here is a few more No.11 is quite good but a bit hard to legislate unfortunately JV seems to be the only 'balls to the wall' driver out there these days.

12. Safety Car needs to be much faster ie a Mercedes CLR.
13. Stop Go Penalty exactly that 'you stop then go' 10 seconds is ridiculous.
14. Make it mandatory for F1 Teams to support lower Formulae
15. Ban refueling & have a single mandatory tyre stop. If you asked the mechanics 95% would agree with this.

Thats it I'm spent.

[Eagle104]

Bring back 1967...and keep it here, dammit!

[AyePirate]

I agree, 1967 was a golden time.

I'm sure that there was a faction back then that thought that the current cars were too easy to drive, that
a "real" racing car had the engine in front of the driver.
Maybe a Stanley Steamer would help us sort the men
from the boys!;) In any "golden era" the designers
were using the technology at hand to the fullest.
The current era seems to be an exception.

Technology marches on, you can't uninvent it.

[PDA]

Hey Bernd - Found just the formula for you - its called NASCAR Winston Cup. Tech regs trap cars in a sixties time warp.

[Bernd]

??? I think if I had the above mentioned car in the 60's I would be lapping the field several times over every race.

The only thing in the list that could be viewed as a step backwards would be the return of mechanical engine control etc. My opinion in this is divided it makes cheating very hard but yes it is a step back so maybe scratch that one. Shifting though I feel very strongly about, how are sequential boxes going to be improved??? They have reached their peak, F1 has done it's job for advancement there. CVT was a step forward but was banned for the simple reason it made the cars sound like Banshees screaming out of hell, now if F1 is all about advancement explain that. CVT would have the cars lapping about 2-3 seconds a lap quicker becuase they are always on power so to speak and don't have to rev up to it.

The emphasis on mechanical grip is simple it WILL bring back overtaking which is all but gone from F1.

BTW NASCAR is really a terrible series I detest it.

[PDA]

Re sequential gearbox improvement - there is a thread in technical about a new gearchange system described in this months Race Car Engineering. Instead of dog ring engagement, it uses electro/hydraulic mini clutches to give almost instant gearchanges. Agree that CVT would make much more sense if allowed.

[Bernd]

Yes agreed but really it is getting to be the sublime and the ridiculous. I mean how much of an improvement is it from 3/100ths of a second to 'almost instant' we'll say almost instant is 3/1000ths just to make it a huge difference still that is a very minute amount of time saved and would probably be next to nothing in lap times.

CVT Where there are no 'shifts' at all to speak of is the way to go for advancement of automotives but I believe it has no place in F1. It is starting to be seen in road vehicles finally.

[MoMurray]

Of course there were golden eras and there probably will be a few more but I think it is important to remember that as long as the rules are the same for everybody, then we will have racing. If the current regulations are so bad, and chimpanzees could drive the cars, then how come the two guys fighting for the championship this year are acknowledged as great racing drivers. If it really is the car that wins and the drivers is just a programmer, why can't Barichello get close to Schumacher. Why can't Coulthard match Hakkinen over the course of a season. If Ferrari and McLaren each built twelve cars, would the championship be any different. Possibly Button and Alesi would be higher up and Villeneuve would challenge but MS and MH would still be on top. I too lament the good old days of stickshift and wheelspin but remember most races were not televised back then ('67) so although it was great fun, very few got to enjoy it. I also believe my enthusiasm for the sport would be diminished if I had to read of another fatality every couple of months. No, my friends, nothing can be uninvented and progress can not be reversed. So as long as F1 is still where the great drivers end up (prior to their retirement in CART of course) and the cars are spectacular, I will continue to watch and enjoy F1. Incidentally, when driver aids were first banned, I remember Senna (in Brazil I think) losing the car after powersliding out of a corner. The great Senna could not catch the slide and was out of the race...TV off! Even with driver aids such as traction control, these cars are still incredibly difficult to drive and almost impossible to take to the limit...and that is why I watch.

[Don Capps]

I shall attempt to tread carefully here, but my own personal feelings about the recent direction of racing in general and F1 in particular are mixed in some ways and quite fixed in others.

"Racing" between competing groups of technology teams is of an "academic" interest to me, but of little visceral interest. It is akin to selling tickets to a lab experiment, but even that in this day and age is probably being done. I work in a very high tech business and have for many years now. It is an incredibly expensive and demanding business. However, I imagine that it is often as interesting as watching grass grow to outsiders.

I have a minimal interest at best in the current "F1" right now. I rarely watch the races and only stay up with the series through this site (plug ;) ). Given the option of either spending several hundred dollars for USGP tickets plus the travel costs to Indianapolis and buying books on some of the topics I am interested in, the books win hands down.

Like most of the current racing series, F1 has gotten so remote to me that it is not much of a factor to me. It simply isn't that interesting to me. Whether or not traction control and all the other technical goodies return or not makes little difference to me. It just ensures that I will probably watch fewer races and follow it less -- if that is possible.

Oh, I do keep an eye on "F1," but I am so underwhelmed by what I see that I am a bit puzzled. I don't so much dislike it as I just don't get any "buzz" from it. It is a form of racing that is getting further and further from what I like in racing: drivers in hairy machines on scary circuits going as quick as they can -- without any trick whizzo stuff to tilt the balance. Oh, I don't exclude building a better mousetrap, just eliminating anything that precludes the driver as a significant factor in the equation.

Technologies cannot be "un-invented." However, spectators can become "un-interested." However, my opinion is no consequence and I accept that. For this year's Atlas F1 year-end issue, I really had to struggle to make my contribution to the cause. As could be readily seen, I look at the series through a very different prism.

Although hopeful that things will cahnge, I am not holding my breath. It will continue to evolve as a commercial entity and hordes will flock to the events and their screens to watch the latest outing. Indeed, as I often admit, it only through decades of habit too hard to break that I follow "F1." Despite myself at times, I still take an interest in goings on even if it isn't all that high on my "must do" list.

"F1" is most certainly not my Alpha and Omega. I certainly enjoyed GP/F1 for many years and treasure those years very much. I am just not excited about the current brand of the product. Besides, Life is much too short to focus one's vision so narrowly. I am one of the few here who probably follows NASCAR closely. I am not wildly entralled with its lurch into the pit of crass commercialism, but it is still at its center a series that places racing on the track ahead of other issues. Besides, I have been watching it for many, many years and have to give the same rationale as I do with "F1," habit. However, it might be a bit higher on my list.

As I again often state, there are many other forms of racing other there than "F1" and they deserve support as well. My visit to the Motorola Cup race at Watkins Glen this Summer (Thanks, Mike!) was a wonderful re-introduction to sports car racing. It was great! While I kept an eye on it in the past, I will pay far more attention in the future.

At heart, I am an open-wheeled racing sort of person. Yes, I enjoy very much the sports cars and the touring cars (to include those of the NASCAR sort), I just gravitate towards the monoposto cars. No rational reason, just that visceral feel that they emit like gamma rays.

Final word: I always thought that race cars (at least the "formula" types), should be "real sumbitches" (as the good Junior Johnson once remarked to me about how his opinion on how race cars handled). Perhaps today's "F1" machines are very advanced and so forth and so on and are evil to drive, but then I think about Our Friends such as Bruce-Brown, Szisz, Navarro, Merz, and so many others and what they did. This helps put things into perspective and reinforces why I study the past with a smile rather than contemplate the present with a furrowed brow.

[jmcgavin]

I know what you mean Don, perhaps the past always appears this way. My year zero f1 wise was 1982 so I have really fond memories of the late turbo years 86 especially but i'm pretty sure they didn't maybe seem as good to someone who started in say 1976.

I'm sure there are plenty of people for whom now will be seen in retrospect as a golden era

This really came home when i was watching a film on the 66 World Cup. Supposedly a classic period for football, yet the commentator of the time spends half the film moaning along the lines of 'this is how football is today, clinical, methodical etc' Presumably his 'golden era' was a bit earlier.

The real shame is so much past F1 wasn't comprehensively filmed so its virtually impossible to compare race to race.
Hence the importance of the 'Grand Prix' film. My main reaction watching that and 'Le Mans' is how unbelievably dangerous it all looks.

[Boniver]

1. Halve downforce with emphasis on front end downforce.
2. Reintroduce Slick tyres.
3. Reintroduce Manual Gearbox's. (Shifing is a fundamental part of Racecraft)
4. Increase Engine Capacity to achieve at least 1000BHP.
5. Change back Engine and Gearbox control to mechanical.
6. Increase Chassis width to increase stability.
7. Make design emphasis on mechanical grip not aero.
8. Abolish or at least phase back Chicanes.
9. Ban Carbon brakes. (Outbraking would return as a realistic passing option)
10. Increase Ride height slightly to further reduce downforce
11. Inflate balls of drivers...
12. Safety Car needs to be much faster ie a Mercedes CLR.
13. Stop Go Penalty exactly that 'you stop then go' 10 seconds is ridiculous.
14. Make it mandatory for F1 Teams to support lower Formulae
15. Ban refueling & have a single mandatory tyre stop. If you asked the mechanics 95% would agree with this.
16. more then 22 cars
17. first F3, then F2 or F3000 before F1
18. no action, no money

[Don Capps]

JM,

Things change: not always for the better, but not always for the worse either. I am very hesitant to 'bash' F1 simply because so many do like it and seem to enjoy it. It simply isn't for me right now. Why should I rain on someone's parade? I will readily admit that I didn't enjoy the 1.5-litre years of GP/F1 very much in spite of a superb first season. But, then along came 1966...

Let's face it, "F1" isn't ever going to be whatever it was -- whatever that was...

I recently retired from officiating football/soccer for many years and I can moan about that as well!

Today, leisure or recreational sports are huge business with massive commercial interests involved -- all which tend to overwhelm the actual talents of those participating. And some of today's athletes are truly superb. However, the hubbub surrounding sports and the shills milking everything beyond reason, some who might truly be greats at any time and any where are simply reduced to video stars.

My concern is that too few remember the opening sentence to Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities -- easily the best opening sentence to a novel in the English language. My other concern is that few care. As someone once remarked, "...the past is a forgotten country."

[MoMurray]

Clearly Don, since you let your Autosport subscription lapse, you are in a deep state of loss. As a remedy, I would suggest you immediately resubscribe and get yourself a subscription the the enquirer to keep up with election results also.

Just kidding. Of course whether we enjoy F1 or anything else for that matter is a very personal choice. For me I enjoy modern F1 and I am thoroghly enjoying the older stuff now that I found TNF. My personal golden era is '76 to '82. Why? I first started paying attention in '76 and I know a driver who left F1 in '82, so for me that's the most interesting part. I like to read about any era of F1 and have learned a great deal about those times when I was too young (pre 76) or to busy (post 82) to pay attention. Since '94, I would say that my interest has peaked again and while I like the cars and the drivers of today, I absolutely agree that their's is an entirely different discipline than that of Hunt for example. I also detest the lack of understanding of F1's historical significance of modern drivers and media (for the most part) I wonder if Schumacher truly understands the shoes he is filling or if Hakkinen has taken the time to read and learn about Bruce Mclaren and the origins of his team. Some say that poor access to modern drivers is bad, but frankly they don't have much personality so keep them locked away as far as I am concerned. But when they fire up the engines, then I am ready to be a fan.

[Bernd]

Originally posted by MoMurray
Of course there were golden eras and there probably will be a few more but I think it is important to remember that as long as the rules are the same for everybody, then we will have racing. If the current regulations are so bad, and chimpanzees could drive the cars, then how come the two guys fighting for the championship this year are acknowledged as great racing drivers.

You missed my point Mo if all the driver aids I mentioned where added on the cars THEN a monkey could drive them. As is at the moment it is still possible for a good driver to rise above the rest, but the human element is getting smaller and smaller. I agree with the gist of what Don is saying that modern Formula 1 is boring and clinical with very little 'racing' occuring at all.

One is forced to think what the late greats Fangio, Clark, Rindt and others would have thought of it, not much I would presume.

[Don Capps]

I am still able to see in my mind's eye the drivers of the 50's sitting in the cockpit hustling those puppies around the track, arms akimbo, and the thrill of having one of them look straight at you and then smile and give a little wave....

If it were up to me, the grids would be nothing but Maserati 250F's, Lancia D50's, Vanwalls, Ferrari 625/555/553, Kurtis & Watson & Kuzma roadsters, Mercedes W196's, Gordinis, Connaughts and so forth....with somehow throwing in the Ferrari 375's, Alfa 158/159's, and even the BRM P15's and whatever else....

....and the USGP would be at Watkins Glen -- but on the original course....

Needless to say, I am hopelessly out of touch with reality...

[desmo]

I am probably alone here but I feel that the relaxing of the TC regs was precisely the right thing to do given the facts and circumstances as they presently stand.

I've only been following F1 since '68 or so, and have only been able to watch televised races since '80 or whenever CBC started telecasting them, and I think the sport is still fascinating. There are boring races to be sure, but when hasn't that been the case? I breathlessly anticipate the coming season, lots of interesting developments on tap: The renewal of the epic MS/MH struggle, reaching Senna/Prost proportions now, the appearance of Juan Montoya in the Williams BMW, the technical cachet of the expected exotica under the engine cover of the Renaultton with sophmore sensation Button at the wheel, a tire war that makes all accusations of predictability suspect, unprecedented manufacturer involvement. Many, many other good stories forming that I am leaving out as well, it should be all one could ask.

[jmcgavin]

Absolutely Don, different strokes, i would have loved to have seen all the stuff you're talking about, but that era for people my age is enshrined in photos, clips from black and white (mostly) films, writing and other memories.

It makes if very difficult to have a feel for what it was like, therfore its impossible to feel that i can make an truly informed comparison if you dont know 'how it was'

[oldtimer]

Some interesting chat going on here! Firstly, I'd like to go back to AyePirate's first posting, and share the proceeds of the bridge sale. In Canada we receive the same TV broadcasts as the Brits, fuddly Walker and all, and the producer of the Suzaka race showed us Hakkinen 'stopping'(remember the AC thing) his wheels during his electric getaway. Whether or not Max has since had words with the said producer, we may not know...And how come the smoking tire thing after the pit stops, which we don't see on the grid?

And now to the other theme that developed. Basically, it seems to me, we don't get to see, either at the track, or on our screens, too much of the driver skills that are being used. Thus Jenks used to comment on Ascari's ability to get off the line without leaving any rubber on the road, in sharp contrast to his opposition. In days of yore, you could see that driver A could drift more effectively than driver B, AND could overtake him going through a corner. You could hear who had more revs on (not at 17,000 you won't), you could hear how much quicker the Ferrari drivers of '60s could go through their gear-boxes etc etc. Michael Schumacher making his Ferari dance on a practice lap still comes through the deadening for-shortening of the TV lens, but the deadening largely rules the visual effect.

I am not old enough to have seen the 'Silver Arrows'in real action. But I will always remember Bill Boddy's description of his first siting of them. Watching from the other side of a brow of a hill at Donington, the approach hidden. Tremendous noise (we still have that, and how) from the start and the approach up the hill, and the first car he saw was a Mercedes, all 4 wheels off the ground. Can you ever forget that? Boddy's image lives with me whenever I look at the specs and pictures of those cars.

So, I don't say the old days were better, you just got to see more of what the drivers could do. But I can't see what the computer programmer and the aerodynamacist have done, apart from allowing an inferior car/driver combination block a superior one. One last example. In CART, we have been able to see how Montoya would go where others wouldn't, or couldn't, on cold tires. Will that skill, and all it implies, be an advantage in F1? Or will programmers neutralise it?

Being less analytical, and more opiniated, I didn't think much of 1959 season, when the championship-winning car cornered faster on 3 wheels than the opposition on four. Nor the Ford/Cosworth Special era, though we saw some fine drivers.

[Frans MSH]

Traction Control Returning to F1


can someone please tell me it was gone then?


;)

[Boniver]

Yes
Minardi had no Traction Control

[MoMurray]

But Mr. Bonhiver (assuming you are a Mr.) I must protest. By denying the sheer brilliance of the Minardi tactics, you surely do this little team a disservice. While all the other teams spend millions on over-powerful engines which "waste" their advantage spinning their wheels, those clever clogs over at Minardi deliberately opted for the less powerfull holeshot special from Ford. This decision in itself is a form of traction control and therefore the old ford engine and any engine more that a season old, should be banned! Perhaps their neighbors down the road in Maranello should consider buying a supply of Peugeot engines to eradicate startline wheelspin.:-)


Mo

[CVAndrw]

Originally posted by MoMurray
I also detest the lack of understanding of F1's historical significance of modern drivers and media (for the most part) I wonder if Schumacher truly understands the shoes he is filling...But when they fire up the engines, then I am ready to be a fan.

Well, me too. But hold on a minute here: do you really think drivers are any different psychologically now and then? Lauda, to cite one example, may have admitted to an interest in Clark, and of course idolized fellow Austrian Rindt, but otherwise resolutely claimed he only cared about winning the next race or Championship, not what or whom had gone before. Don’t you think the brain and values of a top line driver are pretty much the same, regardless of era? If you expend too much time and effort in drawing historic parallels to your heroic ancestors, you may become a great journalist but you’re not going to be World Driving Champion.

(And, to give Schumacher credit, what more do you want him to say after that lachrymose post-race press conference at Monza?)

By the way, I’ll bet designers are the same- Vittorio Jano would’ve probably loved having access to traction control.

[oldtimer]

"BTW, I'll bet designers are the same - Vittorio Jano would have loved to have access to traction control".

He did, CV, when Ascari was behind the wheel.

Does anyone have the time to tell me how to quote a piece of a posting, rather than the whole darn thing?

[AyePirate]

Originally posted by oldtimer


Does anyone have the time to tell me how to quote a piece of a posting, rather than the whole darn thing?

You hit "quote" on the toolbar above the post
you want to quote.

This opens a window that contains
"vB code " tags

Just edit the text between the opening tag "quote"
and the closing tag "/quote" tags just like
any other word processing document

[Boniver]

MoMarray,

the problem is that F1 evolve to Formule Libre classe

classe I - cars with Traction Control and Money
classe II - cars with Traction Control and no Money
classe III - cars without traction control and Money
classe IV - cars without traction control and no Money
classe V - F1 cars

Boniver

[AyePirate]

Originally posted by Boniver

the problem is that F1 evolve to Formule Libre classe

classe I - cars with Traction Control and Money
classe II - cars with Traction Control and no Money
classe III - cars without traction control and Money
classe IV - cars without traction control and no Money
classe V - F1 cars

Boniver

Cynics might say that is an apt description
of the 2000 season;)

[Ray Bell]

If, as suggested, were were to freeze in on a particular year, why not the technically exciting 1966?
The purpose would be to allow development without new innovation, and wings began in 1967 (as discussed previously).
So people could still go to Monaco with stretched 1.5 cars, Spa with their latest V12s with three-valve heads and all that good stuff. And Jack might win again...

[Eric McLoughlin]

The thing is, nearly ALL the classic eras of Grand Prix racing (post war I do admit) are represented today in the historic racing scene. Visit the Coys Festival (as was)or the Goodwood Revival meeting and hoardes of classic GP cars are on display, fighting as hard as ever - sometimes with their original drivers in situ. The FIA thoroughbred GP series this year also produced some exiting racing. Seeing someone like Martin Stretton hustling the Tyrell 003 up the Goodwood hill is quite a sight. OK, it must have been great to see Fangio in a Maserati 250 or Nuvolari in an Alfa but seeing cars like this being given a good workout on a circuit, especially Goodwood, is a joy to behold.

[Ray Bell]

No doubt... (sniff!)