124 replies to this topic

[Romulus]

I recently posted a thread called "Fun stuff about Ferrari engines" http://www.atlasf1.c...&threadid=17019
here is chapter two in which HHF explains why he thinks without a doubt Ferrari is using TC.


From www.hhf.de



"Just to get some things right
(03/10) Hey guys – keep cool: I find it pretty good that you are reading my homepage so frequently and with so much attention to detail. But at the moment it looks as if I had to calm down a little storm.

That’s why I address a word to all fans of Michael Schumacher, but also to the fans of a certain Frentzen: nothing is as hot as you believe. What is the irritation all about that’s been caused by my recent columns? It’s got to do with traction control. This term is extremely unspecific and it means everything or nothing.

The only thing which is certain is that between 1994 and the 2001 Spanish Grand Prix, this technical detail which aims at preventing spinning wheels is basically illegal. But that’s the way things are: If something is not permitted, it gives an extra incentive to smart engineers to circumvent these rules. This is very typical for Formula 1 in particular.

And now I give you an unconditional statement: In the past 18 races, I had plenty of opportunity to trail behind Ferrari cars or machinery powered by Ferrari engines. And one thing was particularly remarkable: out of tight corners, these cars had a pretty stunning acceleration, combined with a misfiring engine.

For me, it is beyond doubt that somehow Ferrari managed to develop an engine software which reduces the power by a certain margin to the extent that the driven wheels don’t spin.

It cannot be ignored that something like that exists, there is simply no room for a discussion about that. On the other hand, however, you can discuss if the device that exists is legal or illegal. I believe that Formula 1 – thanks to its brilliant engineers – progressed into an area which is hard to be defined even by the FIA. And this is exactly why the FIA opted for the right consequence to change the rules in order to legalize traction control in the future.

I’m sorry that this explanation was a bit theoretical but apparently, there is a heated debate about it which means certain words will have to be chosen still more carefully. And this is exactly why I don’t find it correct that the German tabloid paper “Bild”-Zeitung copied only parts of my assumptions from my home page while it ignored other parts like the aspect of a traction control being legal or illegal which has often been discussed. At the end of the day, this is quite unfair towards Nick who is blamed to be cheating by “Bild”-Zeitung.

Once again: in the laps when I was following Nick, he drove without any errors. This was a performance that deserved to be awarded with his first ever Formula 1 points. On the other hand, I have to admit that it would have been nice if the “internal Mönchengladbach championship” of our common home town had ended in a slightly different way… "



Wow!!
I belive HHF knows what he's talking about and I admire his courage to talk about it.
As is stated before where there is smoke there is fire..
I know some people will start the bashing right away but let's try to keep this civilized..

[JPMCrew]

And now we will probably get a whole bunch of posts declaring Frentzen to be the Anti-Christ himself

What really pisses me off is that Ferrari probably chose to block the reintroduction of TC just to keep it to themselves for 3 races and thus get an unfair advantage on the rest of the teams - McLaren not withstanding.

[Thunder]

Romulus, if you have tapes from 99 , in Hockenheim , MS was ahead and Hakkinen ,after struggling in semiwet was doing the same lap times compared to MS. There was only one difference. MS was sliding all along but not Hakkinen. If there is someone cheating it is McLaren not Ferrari. The same accusations were made for McLarens in france 2000. Please dont talk sensless treads.

[S2000]

I respect him for speaking his mind.

But he's being naive to have not anticipated how the press would pounce on his words and use them out of context.

[Romulus]

Thunder, HHF is an experiensed driver and surley if he would think that the Mac:s where using TC he would name them too.
But he's not..

HHF started racing F1 before TC was banned so he should know what it looks like..
All i can say is remember RB:s win at Hockenheim 2000.


And ofcourse this is why Ferrari and all the teams they supply tries to delay the reintroduction of TC..

[AD]

there is a loophole with reguards to the traction control regulations, and all the teams have exploited this. It is just that some have exploited this loophole better than others.

[mono-posto]

Originally posted by Romulus

All i can say is remember RB:s win at Hockenheim 2000.

Yes I do. RB slipping and twitching through the wet stadium area, sawing at the wheel to keep the car going on track until he could get back out onto the dry forest section...

Sounds like traction control to me.

[Romulus]

AD wrote:
"there is a loophole with reguards to the traction control regulations, and all the teams have exploited this. It is just that some have exploited this loophole better than others"

I guess this is the new sounds from Ferrari fans as even they are starting to see that Ferrari is using somekind of TC.

Well Frans i guess this is a pretty happy day for you

[AD]

did I mention the words "cheat", "traction control", or even "Ferrari" in my last post?

In fact Ferrari is the least likely of all the top teams to use traction control. Did you see their rocket starts, or their amazing control of tyre wear last year, like in France or Hungary

[JPMCrew]

AD, but how about this:

HHF:
And now I give you an unconditional statement: In the past 18 races, I had plenty of opportunity to trail behind Ferrari cars or machinery powered by Ferrari engines. And one thing was particularly remarkable: out of tight corners, these cars had a pretty stunning acceleration, combined with a misfiring engine.

[HouseOfDesai]

RB may have had some trouble in the rain, but wasn't he on DRY tries?

[30ft penguin]

All teams with good engineers (which pretty much means everybody with a reasonable amount of money) use "something-which-works-like-TC-but-is-halfway-legal". Even though I am a Ferrari fan, I would not be so stupid as to deny that they probably have found some way to work around the written rules. It's not illegal, but it's not along the idea behind the rules. So Frentzen drove behind a Ferrari-powered car and he figured out that Ferrari have better engineers. Big deal. Should we now disqualify all Ferrari-powered cars just because the engineers did what they are paid for, find a way to gain an advantage while adhering to the written rules ? And forget about, for example, the completely ridiculous McLaren starts (as seen at Melbourne, full screen zoomed-in on digital TV when MH did a practice start at the end of the pit lane: car is standing, MH applies throttle, rear wheels start spinning, then stop spinning and come to a full stop for a fraction of a second, then car starts moving without any hint of wheel spin. Same as last year e.g. at Suzuka. Sounds like TC to me, yet FIA obviously cannot do anything against it, since it is - like the Ferrari "get out of turns quickly"-TC-lookalike - not against the written rules.

I say: let them go on with it, from Spain on the situation is clear and all the bickering will stop. If the TC-like devices many teams use are so obvious that even WE in front of the TV do notice them, you can be 100% sure that the not-that-intelligent teams without such things have already protested, and the FIA obviously did not do anything against it yet. So the reason most likely is that they CANNOT do anything against it since, strictly speaking, these things ARE not illegal. It may sound ridiculous, but this is also the reason why TC will become legal from Spain on. So get over it.

[JPMCrew]

Actually, I don't think the fact that they circunvented the TC rules bothers me as much as the fact that they blocked the legalization of similar systems. This shows a very unsporting spirit. I don't doubt for a second that other teams with equal amount of resources would have "cheated" if they had known how to do it; but Ferrari was the only team that stood in the way of legalization. And the way the decision came about was very suspicious too. Ferrari, as all other teams, had already agreed to lift the ban on TC; then, a couple of days before they were supposed to vote, they unexplicably changed their minds... Why did they do it?

[Ricardo F1]

Why is it that when a thread is started about Ferrari, Ferrari fans have to start throwing stones at McLaren? And vice-versa for that matter.

Harry Frentzen has followed his fair share of McLarens and his fair share of Ferrari's and Ferrari counterparts. He's saying that Ferrari have a system that might be inside the written rules that basically acts as traction control.

Legal or not, Ferrari fans, maybe them drivers are getting a little bit of help.

[jimmy mike]

Every team are trying to find a way to emulate so called the real traction control. Ferrari has just done best job with their engine mapping related softwares. But their traction control device isn't illegal, sure it's in a grey area, but not illegal.

But those who are saying that Ferrari don't have TC kind of systems in their cars are living in denial. I myself became convinced that Ferrari has some kind of TC-type system in use, when 1999 at Hungary Mika Salo were so much slower compare to Eddie Irvine. Mika Salo said one of his interviews during that weekend that they had problems with his car's engine softwares and so he didn't have any grip at all because his car's wheels were just spinning every corner. Subsequently Salo qualified very badly, wasn't he 18 or something? Anyway, next race Salo was again as fast as Irvine, so there certainly were something fishy going on at Hungary weekend.

[George Bailey]

Originally posted by JPMCrew
Actually, I don't think the fact that they circunvented the TC rules bothers me as much as the fact that they blocked the legalization of similar systems.

I guess I don't understand what you're saying here. If Ferrari has a system that circumvents the rules, (it breaks the spirit but not the letter of the law), then anyone team is just a free to do the same. For Ferrari, or any other team, to get the FIA to ban a "similar system" they and the FIA would first have to be able to prove the system was being used. If the FIA could detect it on another team, they could also detect it in the Ferrari - Ferrari would have gotten their own system banned.

HHF thinks Ferrari is doing something that is not able to be proven by the FIA as TC. Every other team can do the same if they figure out how. The only thing Ferrari didn't do that could have helped the other teams is give them the code they use. Why would they?

[Raelene]

excuse me

when Harry first started taliking about this he said that the teams had complicated mapping devices... he mentioned both Ferrari and McLaren

In his recent post he says it can be debtable whether it is legal or not...

read the articles correctly people...

all the teams at Melbourne had great engine mapping that works like traction control - except for maybe the Jags, they were sliding everywhere.

[Ricardo F1]

I think his most recent article is pretty clear!!! Ferrari engines have unbelieveable traction out of corners. . .

[Isamu]

HHF is a legend

What other driver would be unafraid to speak his mind.

Especially on a view that affects the most visible team in F1


The man should be congratulated, beside he is not the only one.

I was reading F1racing season preview


Peter Windsor's analysis on PROST

"if the 2000 Ferrari enigine/gearbox/traction control package is as effective in a Prost as it was in last years factory cars. Oops."

This from a Schumacher loving journalist (Peter Windsor)

Traction Control in a 2000 Factory Ferrari Engine

Its not a typo

Question, how come Windsor didn't cop any ****?

I would have thought that Ferrari would have undertaken some legal proceedings against Windsor.

[Thanassis]

Originally posted by Romulus
Wow!!
I belive HHF knows what he's talking about and I admire his courage to talk about it. [/B]

Wait a minute here!
You suggest that HHF could actually HEAR the Sauber (or maybe Ferrari?) engine misfiring? That's quite a feat, since he had his own engine right behind him! I mean, wouldn't the sound of the Honda engine be louder than anything else around? After all, HHF was close to the Sauber but even closer to his own engine.

As far as I'm concerned, HHF was just furious that he couldn't pass KR and NH (who are both rookies, aren't they?)!
So when the race was over he had to say something to justify his inability to pass them. And he implied that Ferrari engines have TC.

To me it's that simple!
But of course I'm having my eyes and ears open for a more rational explanation than this one! Any better ideas?

[MN]

Originally posted by AD
.... tyre wear last year, .....

Nice try but it doesn't prove anything.
NSX is a sports car which allows average sunday drivers to enjoy twisty country roads. It does not require advanced driving skills like Porsche 911 or Ferrari 348td might do.
NSX is also famous to use up rear tyres very quickly, they may last only 10,000km or so.
NSX's excessive tyre wear is a trade off of easy handling on the dry roads. (but it will be twitchy on the wet).
Secret is that rear wheels are toe'd-in about 5 ~ 6 degrees.
TC is a standard equipment in NSX.

-----------

So, HHF DID mean it eh? Very interesting!

[chester316]

Originally posted by JPMCrew
:

What really pisses me off is that Ferrari probably chose to block the reintroduction of TC just to keep it to themselves for 3 races and thus get an unfair advantage on the rest of the teams - McLaren not withstanding.

I completely agree with this theory ;)

[Romulus]

Originally posted by Thanassis


Wait a minute here!
You suggest that HHF could actually HEAR the Sauber (or maybe Ferrari?) engine misfiring? That's quite a feat, since he had his own engine right behind him! I mean, wouldn't the sound of the Honda engine be louder than anything else around? After all, HHF was close to the Sauber but even closer to his own engine.

Im not suggesting anything HHF is
Read it for yourself
"And now I give you an unconditional statement: In the past 18 races, I had plenty of opportunity to trail behind Ferrari cars or machinery powered by Ferrari engines. And one thing was particularly remarkable: out of tight corners, these cars had a pretty stunning acceleration, combined with a misfiring engine.

For me, it is beyond doubt that somehow Ferrari managed to develop an engine software which reduces the power by a certain margin to the extent that the driven wheels don’t spin.

It cannot be ignored that something like that exists, there is simply no room for a discussion about that"

[George Bailey]

How does Ferrari gain an unfair advantage over the other teams by possibly being better when it comes to engine mapping?

HHF has also been following the McLarens the past 3 years, just like the McLarens were following his Williams in 1997. Is it only Ferrari that is being unfair if they manage to do what everyone else is doing better than the rest???

[HP]

What seems fishy to me, why doesn't HHF go to the FIA, or let his team launch a complaint against Ferrari? Is this the way to do things? Just kill the reputation of another team?

Maybe HHF is right in his observation, but the way he goes about sucks.

[Ricardo F1]

Depends if that 'engine mapping' is legal really.

[Nasty McBastard]

roll on spain...then we can stop going over this stuff all the time

[George Bailey]

Originally posted by Ricardo F1
Depends if that 'engine mapping' is legal really.

Exactly, and how on earth could HHF, or anyone here, know? Don't accuse people if you don't have the goods.

[Blade]

I think HHF is brave that he speaks up what's in his mind.... after reading his comments from www.hhf.de

Go HHF !!...

[George Bailey]

What is brave about making an accusation and then backing off a bit reminding everyone that you can't prove it? It's not brave, it's just chatty.

[Romulus]

Dosent sound to me like HHf is beeing a poor looser

"Once again: in the laps when I was following Nick, he drove without any errors. This was a performance that deserved to be awarded with his first ever Formula 1 points. On the other hand, I have to admit that it would have been nice if the “internal Mönchengladbach championship” of our common home town had ended in a slightly different way… "


HHF is as far as I'm concerned 1 of the fairest drivers out there and if he's making theese comments something must be bothering him..
It's like he's saying what's on everybodys mind

[MN]

Originally posted by HP
What seems fishy to me, why doesn't HHF go to the FIA, or let his team launch a complaint against Ferrari? Is this the way to do things? .....

Yeah right but....
maFIA already has the list of suspecious teams from last season but they are technically incapable to prove it thus allowing TC for everyone from Spain. Right?
Official complaint will do nothing if they don't have enough technical knowledge.

[George Bailey]

I wonder why Ferrari are bothering to test their TC this week. Wouldn't they already have 5 years worth of data?

[MN]

Originally posted by George Bailey
I wonder why Ferrari are bothering to test their TC this week. Wouldn't they already have 5 years worth of data?

Can't you think of anything ?
You are a programmer as per your profile.
Isn't it common to apply software patches to existing software for improvements?
Many F1 car components are changing every year, even through the season. Tyres are different(better then last year), down force will be different due to front wing regulation change, engines are different, there are many reasons to debug or tune-up existing software I would think.

[Smooth]

So when we re-visit this thread post-Spain, everyone claiming that Ferrari is running TC will be either vindicated if Ferrari are suddenly off the pace. But if Ferrari keeps their current level of performance in comparison to the the other teams, then what??

Just curious....

[senninha]

I think Ferrari doesn't use TC just for one thing: crappy RB's starts and not so good MS's.

In the other side, the McLarens ...

[George Bailey]

Well of course that will prove Ferrari had illegal TC all along so they will be running TC 5.2 when everyone else will be running 1.0.

Of course if Ferrari is slower relative to the field after Spain that will also prove they had TC all along as now the playing field will be level.

That's the beauty with sour-grapes conspiracy theories.

[George Bailey]

Originally posted by MN

Can't you think of anything ?
You are a programmer as per your profile.
Isn't it common to apply software patches to existing software for improvements?
Many F1 car components are changing every year, even through the season. Tyres are different(better then last year), down force will be different due to front wing regulation change, engines are different, there are many reasons to debug or tune-up existing software I would think.

Except they are running the TC with the 2000 car. As you note the 2001 package is totally different, patching wouldn't be an option because it's a different engine and gearbox that you are mapping to. If they had a system in place why use the old car at all?

I figure they are using the old car because the system is still rough (new) and they don't want to try and sort out what is the 2001 car and what is the TC. By using the old car which they have tons of data on, they can isolate problems/solutions as being due to the TC only.

[MN]

Originally posted by George Bailey Well of course that will prove Ferrari had illegal TC all along so they will be running TC 5.2 when everyone else will be running 1.0.
.....

Nop! Don't forget Sauber's(and possibly Prost's) TC V4.7-A.
Ha ha ha... sorry, could not resist.;)

About using F2000 for test, they maybe using new tyres on old car with existing TC software just for data gathering and making notes on difference.

[desmo]

I agree with those who've said, "wait 'til Spain."

If Ferrari are suddenly off the pace, I think it will indicate that they have been using better TC than the others. Conversely, if not then they likely haven't. Simple really. I recommend that both sides start developing their best rationalizations to explain away the truth then. Me, I'll just wait and see.

[baddog]

every single one of us seemingly continues to see whatever we want to see regardless of the information presented. Frentzen goes to the lengths of posting a specific article for the sole purpose of saying he is NOT accusing any other teams of cheating.. clearly unhappy that his previous comments are being read in that way. and some interpret it as him saying they are.

Ferrari of course have amazingly advanced engine electronics, which push the envelope and do everything they can to improve their performance. if they can legally achieve a useful anti-spin effect they would be fools not to do so. As would all the other teams whos engine electronics are intended to provide the best possible performance (hint, there are 10 other teams in this position). Certainly Ilmor have a system at least the equal of Ferrari's. Honda are a notch behind, but only through lack of success, not through some non existent 'honest everyone else, dishonest ferrari' situation.

Frentzn is clearly more able to understand complex ideas than many here. That said the idea that there is a difference between illegal traction control and legal but complex and clever engine management systems which by their very complexity blur rules not adequate to describe them isnt really that complex an idea.

Shaun

[Juan]

Ferrari and sauber probably do you TC.

Why else would a F1 engine misfire?
I think its obvious they use it.

Good luck to them.
Mclaren have newey and ferrari have TC.

[Formula 1 Freak]

There once was a driver named Nick,
Who drove his blue Sauber so quick
That a colleague of his, said, "he's cheating, he is!
It must be some kind of a trick!"

[BigWig]

This is exactly why traction control in F1 must be legalized.

[desmo]

Agreed, although I wonder what theories the Mac/Ferrari/whoever are cheating so and sos posters will move on to next. Surely something, right? I mean they couldn't just stop could they?;)

[Ricardo F1]

Good grief. Juan, are you saying that your beloved Mr Schumacher has needed to cheat to win?????

[four1]

Has anyone bothered to ask themselves why it's HHF who has to fulfill the role of the messiah in revealing the so called truth about Ferrari cheating. In other words, why has team Mclaren never put this accusation across for example? We all know that RD would immediately jump at any opportunity to expose Ferrari as cheaters (God knows he has tried in so many other ways). Let's see...is it because his drivers have never had to follow a Ferrari around tight corners in the last 18 races thus not having the opportunity to listen to a Ferrari engine misfiring? Or is it because McLaren supplies better ear plugs to their drivers than Jordan does?

There are those who think that HHF is a hero for expressing an opinion of this nature. Why? Is Eddie Irvine a hero every time he makes a provocative statement. How about JV. Wait, I see a common denominator developing here...the guys who can't perform seem to do most of the talking.

[S2000]

Originally posted by four1
Wait, I see a common denominator developing here...the guys who can't perform seem to do most of the talking.

Eh? Surely you don't mean HHF. Qualified 4th, and clawed his way back up from the bottom to 5th during the race.

[pRy]

Strange that HHF has not mentioned other teams

[four1]

S2000, agreed but he underperformed relative to Nick Heidfeld. This was, after all, the catalyst which set off HHF's comments in the first place.