According to F1racing.net, tractioncontrol is set to be banned in 2008. Again! Let´s see what the manufacturers will come up with to create devices that prevent the wheels from spinning, yet can´t be considered tractioncontrol. I can remember certain engine-mapping systems. Should be fun!
They might actually stand a better chance of controlling it this time: Remember that engine development has been frozen and this month each team had to supply a reference engine to the FIA. Regardless, banning traction control is the right thing to do.
Why, so all the street versions can be based on what Porsche develops for *their* racing? Or so Ferrari can put an untested version on their production machine, and then get trashed for poor reliability? F1 is still supposed to be a makes championship. If it goes in a street car, it belongs in racing. (I'd love to see what innovations those team budgets would come up with if there were an emissions limit on F1 cars.) There can be another race series for "stripped to the bone spec cars".
It is a question as old as F1 racing itself: What is more important, the technological progress or the driver input? Each fan has to answer that for himself. I'm all for new technology, so at first I was all for traction control. But now that this topic has been plowed enough, I'm happy to see it banned. We have decent traction and stability controls and fly by wire and paddle shiftings now in street cars, so F1 can release that area back to the human input and focus on something new (like e.g. emissions controls as you suggest). As you probably know I have a big interest in manned space flight and compare it to that: Once NASA has shown how it is done (e.g. suborbital flights, orbital flights, lunar fly bys), they can release that field to the amateurs and the Virgin Galactics of this world can play with it. No more need to do research in that.
Traction control is a BAD thing for F1. That goes for pretty much all electronic "drivers aids". The question is whether F1 should PRIMARILY be a showcase of technology and constructors capabilities OR a venue for the absolute best drivers on the planet to showcase their skills and fight for the world drivers championship. At some point the two ARE mutually exclusive. If you prefer the former.... then allow all electronic aids and any development that serves to make the car faster regardless of driver involvement. If this is the path, then I would expect the driver himself to pretty soon be removed from the car completely. After all, the driver weighs 150lb or more and the space he takes up in the car could be better served with other equipment for better weight distribution. The driver could "drive" the car from a remote "cockpit". This would remove the distraction of all the G forces and remove any danger of injury. The driver could get all the feedback he needs from the remote cockpit. For the driver it would become the ultimate video game and the cars would be faster and technology would be driven forward in leaps and bounds. But this would make F1 suck more than it already does. F1 IMHO should be primarily about the Drivers Championship. The cars should be HARD to drive and very hard to wring the absolute best out of. This means less drivers aids. F1 is already a spec formula to a degree. Rules limit all sorts of things on the cars.... the problem is the rules limit the wrong things and thus make winning more dependent on the technology and the car than the driver. I think any of the top 10 or so drivers could win the WDC given a seat in the top car and team. Compare this to other periods like the early to mid 1970s when any one of 6-8 teams had equipment capable of winning and it really was the skill of the driver that was the determining factor. Here is what I would do for F1: - No electronic drivers aids of any sort. No traction control.... no ABS... nothing. - Brake discs must be constructed of Steel. Pad materials are free as is caliper design but the rotors must be steel. - Spec wings and aero. The FIA should issue front wings, barge boards, rear wings and diffusers to a set spec for each track 3 weeks before each event. Each teams must run the exact same aero package. The overall aero downforce to be generated should be roughly 40% or so of what it is today. All cars must run a totally flat underbody. - All gear shifting must be manual, the clutch must be manually operated and gears must be selected via a gear shift lever with no sequential shifting. DRIVERS must shift gears manually. - Rear wheels can be 16" wide with front wheels 12" wide. Tires are totally free.... any slick can be run. The effort here is to dramatically increase the amount of pure mechanical grip being achieved while aero grip is reduced. - Normally aspirated engines up to 4.0 liters are permitted in any cylinder configuration desired. Engines must run for at least 2 events (to keep costs down). The FIA must have access to all engine ECU and telemetry data at all times. Any team caught using engine management systems to in effect institute a traction control system will be fined $20M and have all results for the year negated. Basically.... more power, lots less aero grip, lots more mechanical grip, drivers shifting gears and braking returned to where passing under braking is a realistic and frequent possibility and no drivers aids. Do all that and F1 would be by far the most exciting RACING on the planet. As it is now, from a pure racing standpoint and showcase of refined driver skill and racing ability I find the Goodwood Revival to be far better than any F1 race. Terry
To retard the sound of an F1 engine at full song should be reason enough to ban TC. Watching drivers pull that sideways, almost out of control race car back is also beautiful.
I would like to see some at least rudimentary form of emissions work at the F1 level. There is a social responsibility involved as the worlds largest sports television audience and representing the major manufacturers on the planet. Time to grow up.
While I'm no tree hugger myself, he does have an argument. It would behoove F1 to embrace more of the eco friendly and politically correct technologies. And that is actually coming with the planned recouping of the brake energy. Not that I terribly care personally, but it does help the image of F1 and it won't really negatively affect the racing part of it. A win/win for everybody. Or to put it differently: Switzerland banned motor racing after the Le Mans accident in the fifties. Ever since many groups have tried to get the ban on racing reversed and have again a Swiss GP. This never happened for a variety of reasons, but not the least was the political belief, that the "glorification of the automobile" is sending the wrong message to the kids. Think about it: If F1 could evolve into a testbed for tomorrow's eco friendly technologies, those voices would be silenced.
Personally, I would rather see something more like formula libre, with virtually no rules, other than the car must fit into a box of "x" width, "y" height, and "z" length.....unfortuantely, no one could afford this type of almost totally unlimited car....
It was tried back in the sixties and seventies and killed a lot of its participants. It was called CanAm.
There is a lot more technology than there was then....also, isn't F1 supposed to be the ultimate form of racing, and have as few controls as possible?
That seems nutty. Does anyone want to see a Ford Focus pound around a race track at 135 kph? A race car is a totally different machine than a street car, even on a Ferrari level. The whole notion of "race on Sunday and sell on Monday" is about 50 years past. I don't want to see windows breaking, body roll severe brake fade, drivers sliding around in a seat with a shoulder belt. I also don't want to see how many deaths will be caused by having street cars pushed for 2 hours straight on a race track designed for race cars. No one does that for many very good reasons.
Actually, what I was thinking is that preserving performance isn't a priority for anybody else working on emissions controls. I'd like to see some auto technology that doesn't equate "green" with "slug".
Yes, and there's a series for that. It's not F1, though. But developing disc brakes happened in F1 -- and FIA didn't ban them as making it "too easy" on the driver. And does that Focus have drum brakes? The one I keep coming back to is ABS. F1 never had it for long -- and the ones that went on production cars in the '80s were garbage. Because it was never "wrung out" on the track. By the same token, I skipped the Mitsu 3000GT/VR4, because it had a lot of innovative features .... and never raced anywhere. (Garage queen.) My EVO doesn't have all the ponies of the WRC car (although the anti-lag would be handy) -- but a lot of the hardware has been tried and tested. Why should I pay for experimental technology on my daily driver, when some of the best drivers in the world get paid the big money to work the bugs out of "bleeding edge" technology?
Cant wait to see the first race with rain . I will also put up 3:1 odds, Ferrari hires Michael to race in the rain for them. That race should be lots of fun and is the only chance Spyker has of making a podium,
LOL, now that is positive thinking. I think Kimi will be alright though if it does Rain. With Rain my bet is either Kimi or FA for the win.
I love races in the rain, it reminds me which drivers really really suck and how stupid some drivers/teams can be (ie. put on hard compounds when its still raining )
