F1 & Traction Control

[ApexClipper]

First off, great race today

In watching the on-screen display of brake / throttle application, I couldn't help but think that the drivers are relying too much on the traction control.

I was watching Alonso, and you could see him using full throttle just at the apex, although before full throttle was even reached, the TC was cutting in and staying in until the car was virtually pointing straight ahead again.

To my mind, he is simply getting onto the power then sitting on the TC and letting it do the work - if I'm talking shyte, then someone feel free to wade in and correct me.

Now, I am not one of those armchair Schumachers - I'll concede that these guys have more talent in their little fingers than I'll ever have in my life. However, I felt pretty cheated - here are the some of the best drivers in the world, competing in what is widely regarded as the pinnacle of motorsport, yet watching that little TC icon flash away.....

Ten years ago, there's no way a driver would have been able to apply full throttle like this without lighting up the rears and slewing into a drift.



>> Edited by ApexClipper on Sunday 12th March 19:19

[Joe911]

I also thought it was interesting when they showed the telemetry for Alonson (leading towards the end) and Schumi at the same time ...

You could see that the Ferrari throttle be being blipped while braking and downshifting - but the Renault throttle apparently was not registering anything during braking/down-shifting.

Any thoughts?

[Eric Mc]

As I said on another thread, I've been watching my recordings of the 1983 season. It's wonderful to watch drivers like Rosberg (Keke of course) lighting up their rear tyres and power sliding out of corners. The 1983 cars were 200 mph capable too. They couldn't corner as fast as current machines but BOY were they spectacular.


A lot of the spectacle of F1 has been lost because of technology.

>> Edited by Eric Mc on Sunday 12th March 15:05

[speedychrissie]

Joe911 said:

I also thought it was interesting when they showed the telemetry for Alonson (leading towards the end) and Schumi at the same time ... You could see that the Ferrari throttle be being blipped while braking and downshifting - but the Renault throttle apparently was not registering anything during braking/down-shifting. Any thoughts?

i noticed that and thought it was a bit odd.
either the ferrari automatically blips on downshifts and renault decided that it wasnt necessary, or schumi blips and alonso doesnt, or perhaps they were showing more info for shumi because they were on his camera and the renault was actually blipping but they werent showing it.

dont know which scenario is more likely though.

[nightdriver]

I think the on screen telementary should be taken with a pinch of salt...
All the cars will automatically 'blip' on downshift to prevent the rear wheels locking. A driver would not have time to blip the throttle between changes as the shift time is too short.
In one respect it is easier for the drivers but on the other hand the top drivers will be adjusting their brake balance 3/4 or even 5 times on a single lap to set them up for the different types of corners. With the elcetrical aids there is still alot for the drivers to do, just in a different way (diff, brake balance, rpm)

[flemke]

Joe911 said:

I also thought it was interesting when they showed the telemetry for Alonson (leading towards the end) and Schumi at the same time ... You could see that the Ferrari throttle be being blipped while braking and downshifting - but the Renault throttle apparently was not registering anything during braking/down-shifting. Any thoughts?

Joseph!
I didn't think that was downshifting/blipping; it continued past the points where you would normally downshift.
Schumacher is reputed to be the master of left-foot braking, which is obviously easier to do in these cars.
I thought that he was keeping the engine on the boil before the moment when he could get back on the throttle properly. Either that or he was trimming the car's yaw.

[joe911]

flemke said:

Joseph! I didn't think that was downshifting/blipping; it continued past the points where you would normally downshift. Schumacher is reputed to be the master of left-foot braking, which is obviously easier to do in these cars. I thought that he was keeping the engine on the boil before the moment when he could get back on the throttle properly. Either that or he was trimming the car's yaw.

I've just watched that bit again and it really does seem to coincide with the downshifts - though I would agree that the last downshift does seem very late.

In addition I observe that Schumi appears to be putting the throttle down faster than Alonso (whether that be a good thing or not). Although we can't tell who started putting it down first.

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

Eric Mc said:

A lot of the spectacle of F1 has been lost because of technology.

True...but the (official) technology is a lot less than it was (active suspension etc). They reintroduced the TC when (allegedly) the richer teams were cheating when it was banned. They couldn't work out what they were doing, so re-introduced it.

[hammerwerfer]

Joe911 said:

You could see that the Ferrari throttle be being blipped while braking and downshifting - but the Renault throttle apparently was not registering anything during braking/down-shifting. Any thoughts?

Yeah, I found that interesting as well. I was wondering if Schumi is showing his age, and does it out of habit whilst Alonso jsut never learned to match revs, having probably grown up with sequential gearboxes, more sophisticated engine management and the like.

Sort of like Freddy Loix being the last big time rally driver not to left foot brake.

Schumi a dinosaur?

[hammerwerfer]

flemke said:

[ I didn't think that was downshifting/blipping; it continued past the points where you would normally downshift. Schumacher is reputed to be the master of left-foot braking, which is obviously easier to do in these cars. I thought that he was keeping the engine on the boil before the moment when he could get back on the throttle properly. Either that or he was trimming the car's yaw.

I've not recorded the race so I can't go back and review it, but if my memory serves me correctly, there were a couple bits where it appeared that he was using that technique in the early part of the corner, but it looked fairly clear that he was blipping on the downshifts prior to that as well.

[Joe911]

hammerwerfer said:

Yeah, I found that interesting as well. I was wondering if Schumi is showing his age, and does it out of habit whilst Alonso jsut never learned to match revs, having probably grown up with sequential gearboxes, more sophisticated engine management and the like.

Would that be manual blipping, or the computer doing it for him?

[hammerwerfer]

Joe911 said:

Would that be manual blipping, or the computer doing it for him?

I'm guessing that the telemetry was recording the position of the accelerator pedal, and therefor showing the input of the driver rather than any elctronic blips.

[Joe911]

hammerwerfer said:

Joe911 said: Would that be manual blipping, or the computer doing it for him? I'm guessing that the telemetry was recording the position of the accelerator pedal, and therefor showing the input of the driver rather than any elctronic blips.

Good point - the display was of "throttle" and not "revs".
Although maybe the Ferrari does include computer controlled blips and the Renault doesn't - which would explain the difference?

[richb]

Sorry... so is traction control allowed in F1 again these days? I know I must keep up but it's hard enough what with teh qualification and tyre change rules to remember... Rich...

[TonyHetherington]

Glad you guys spotted that (the rev blipping), I thought it very interesting.

My first thoughts were that both cars were doing it (the chances of locking the rear wheels with such cars would surely be too high?), but simply that they picked it up from different places. I speak with complete ignorance, but assumed it depended at what point the screen telemetry was getting it's signal; ECU, throttle sensor, engine revs etc. etc. Perhaps it was different on each car?

I can't imagine that they manually do it?!

Flemke; you mentioned above that Schumacher is the master of left foot breaking. I was under the impression that ALL drivers in F1 use left foot for brake and right foot for accelerator; simply because of the sheer lack of space to move feet around? (doing so would, I understood, require a larger frontal area...not good).

[FourWheelDrift]

AFAIK Barrichello was one of the (or even the last) of the right foot brakers in F1 he moved to LFB either last year or the year before.

[anonymous-user]

Do they actually get the telemetry from the cars these days? ISTRT initially the "telemetry" graphics were generated by processing the audio and picking up the revs and gear changes simply from the engine note.

[Joe911]

LexSport said:

Do they actually get the telemetry from the cars these days? ISTRT initially the "telemetry" graphics were generated by processing the audio and picking up the revs and gear changes simply from the engine note.

You're having a laugh, right?

[ApexClipper]

FourWheelDrift said:

AFAIK Barrichello was one of the (or even the last) of the right foot brakers in F1 he moved to LFB either last year or the year before.

Yup, I remember reading an in-depth comparison of telemetry between Scumacher & Barrichello around the same track. The purpose of the comparison was to show where and how much Michael gained by using left-foot braking, as opposed to Reuben's right-foot technique.

As for the throttle blipping / feathering, I noticed this too - as someone pointed out, it could well just be a habitual technique of Shuey's.

[D_Mike]

Joe911 said:

LexSport said: Do they actually get the telemetry from the cars these days? ISTRT initially the "telemetry" graphics were generated by processing the audio and picking up the revs and gear changes simply from the engine note. You're having a laugh, right?

This is what I thought they did too.