Michael Schumacher & traction control...
Discussion
Bedazzled said:
Hear hear. Most of the other cheats from the Benetton 'crazy gang' (Schuey, Briatore, Symonds, etc) have been found out but I'm amazed mud hasn't stuck to Ross Brawn as he was technical director while all this was going on. The stories are well known, illegal TC, illegal ride height, running underweight using fuel ballast, increasing the fuel rig flow rate, even adding lead ballast to Schuey's helmet after races. I'm sure there's plenty more too. I'm glad it's catching up with them but sadly it doesn't change the stats.
IMHO this year has done a lot to expose Schumacher's reliance on having an advantage but at the end of the day it also spoils the memories of those supposed great victories which I watched in awe at the time. Was he ever that great? What would his reputation be if he had won 3-4 championships fairly? Could he have beaten Senna? We were certainly robbed of an epic battle there.
I'd say there was a reliance of testing to perfect the car to Schumi's liking and now he's been moaning about the testing ban.IMHO this year has done a lot to expose Schumacher's reliance on having an advantage but at the end of the day it also spoils the memories of those supposed great victories which I watched in awe at the time. Was he ever that great? What would his reputation be if he had won 3-4 championships fairly? Could he have beaten Senna? We were certainly robbed of an epic battle there.
He's definitely past his peak as a driver.
Derek Smith said:
10 Pence Short said:
heebeegeetee said:
FourWheelDrift said:
And according to F1 journo Joe Saward after Senna was taken out by Hakkinen early on in the race he stayed track-side to listen to the cars, on returning to the Williams pits his opinion was the Benetton's were illegal.
I've never bought that one. It's not possible for one man to stand in the middle of a circuit while there's either a race or a practice session going on, and be the only man within the entire circuit who can hear traction control.That just isn't possible.
Who could anyone complain to? The FIA? The stewards? I can see that being a popular option. If you create a fuss you could get fined $100,000,000 I'm told. Stick your head above the parapet and you could get heavily penalised for letting a car overtake you. Unless, of course, it is your own team mate.
The media - the TV and the periodicals - just ignored it.
The version of the story i think i heard the most was of Senna hearing it after he had spun out at Brazil. Is anyone going to tell me that the Brazilian TV, journos, media, stewards, marshals and spectators would have kept schtum after seeing their hero humbled? Why would they do that?
I'm being asked to believe that all of the people can be fooled all of the time here.
entropy said:
LDN said:
Sorry but not sure I follow all of that... however, I get the jist. I don't doubt MS's ability but I was trying to establish how many drivers championships MS had won without traction control; the answer is seemingly 'none'. Like I've said before, I want to see Mercedes do well so I'm not here to bash - it was just a point that I was discussing with a friend.
Then what is your point?Why should TC demean his 'worth'? It's all very having it but you need the whole car package as well as top drivers.
Ferrari had TC in 1994 and they weren't exactly fighting for the WDC.
heebeegeetee said:
LDN said:
My point was merely that Schuey favours TC and drivers like Senna didn't.
I thought senna would take anything that would help him win?
heebeegeetee said:
If one man can stand inside a circuit and hear traction control then everyone would hear it, including the TV cameras. The marshals would hear it, the stewards would, the journalists would, the spectators, everybody
...but only if they knew what to listen for.Engine pitch has long been used to estimate revs and thus engine settings and consumption rates of rival teams. In past, it was done by ear, now, it's done with automated audio analysis. Either option only gives a rough estimation as it's difficult to isolate the noise from cars other than the one a team is interested in.
From memory, early traction control was fairly crude and worked by cutting power (fuel) to one, two or however many cylinders. This will have resulted in a momentarily sick sounding engine but would not have corresponded to lap times which would (should) have been good. Later traction control became more refined but still you could hear it work but you needed to know what you were listening to.
I'm always surprised that some analysis can't be done retrospectively on old footage of the cars.
Just doesn't seem to be beyond the ken of modern hardware/software, but that's from a completely zero informed opinion, obviously.
I'm probably more asking why it can't be done than anything...
Just doesn't seem to be beyond the ken of modern hardware/software, but that's from a completely zero informed opinion, obviously.
I'm probably more asking why it can't be done than anything...
StevieBee said:
heebeegeetee said:
If one man can stand inside a circuit and hear traction control then everyone would hear it, including the TV cameras. The marshals would hear it, the stewards would, the journalists would, the spectators, everybody
...but only if they knew what to listen for.Engine pitch has long been used to estimate revs and thus engine settings and consumption rates of rival teams. In past, it was done by ear, now, it's done with automated audio analysis. Either option only gives a rough estimation as it's difficult to isolate the noise from cars other than the one a team is interested in.
From memory, early traction control was fairly crude and worked by cutting power (fuel) to one, two or however many cylinders. This will have resulted in a momentarily sick sounding engine but would not have corresponded to lap times which would (should) have been good. Later traction control became more refined but still you could hear it work but you needed to know what you were listening to.
I'm sure if Senna had heard something that concerned him, one of those engineers would soon have been stood in the same spot.
I don't know whether benetton had TC when they shouldn't or not, but all I do know is that if they had it, I think it would have been impossible to hide it imo.
heebeegeetee said:
Fair enough, but let's remember that Senna was a driver, not an engineer. An incredibly gifted driver, but there are also a lot of incredibly gifted engineers in that pit lane.
I'm sure if Senna had heard something that concerned him, one of those engineers would soon have been stood in the same spot.
Fair point. I'm sure if Senna had heard something that concerned him, one of those engineers would soon have been stood in the same spot.
There's also the theory that they were all doing it or trying to do it so "let's not make too much of a fuss our ours will get spotted too!"
entropy said:
mattikake said:
Possibly all of the WDC's had some element of TC, but an oficial stat is probably unlikely as this was all unofficial! The FIA gave up on the ban in er... 2002 IIRC... because it was impossible to police. You know this means many teams were running some form of it or another.
As I see it, Schumi's all-conquering driving style was based around TC. Without it, he was fast, but not 'all-conquering' as per 1992 and 1993, especially when comparing wet weather performances with perhaps only 2 good drives out of 7 wet races. (7 wins out of 11 in 'official' TC times in the wet). A considerable difference in form. And TC is obviously more significant in the wet...
Absolute waffle.As I see it, Schumi's all-conquering driving style was based around TC. Without it, he was fast, but not 'all-conquering' as per 1992 and 1993, especially when comparing wet weather performances with perhaps only 2 good drives out of 7 wet races. (7 wins out of 11 in 'official' TC times in the wet). A considerable difference in form. And TC is obviously more significant in the wet...
It's a misconception TC benefits in the wet - up to point but TC will never stop a car from aquaplaning.
B192 had no fancy gizmos and he still won a race in changing conditions!
He only won in Belgium because Senna tried to stay out on slicks (and proceeded to hold up 4 cars on wets for 2 laps, including Schumi) and Mansell retired whilst he was catching Schumi fast. It was a victory of luck.
In the other wet races in '91, '92 and '93, Schumi was soundly beaten by Senna and/or Mansell in the wet, and even didn't do so well against Rubens in Donnington and was having an evens race-long scrap with the renowned rainmaster Brundle (not) in Belgium '91. (remembering of course, Senna and Mansell proved instantly outstanding in their first wet races).
Pretty average performance and certainly not outstanding.
"That's not within the spirit of the rules" is a phrase that I have never, ever heard in an F1 design office.
A great example of this is McLaren's F-duct. If this was a nice sport then Martin Whitmarsh would have said "hold on lads, the spirit of the rules say we can't do that, it's a movable aerodynamic aid", instead they looked at the rules and figured that it was fine as long as the aid wasn't mechanically movable - blocking a hole in the front of the car with Button's knee doesn't count.
The reason for the ban on TC is as much to do with it being so hard to define as it is hard to find. A common school of thought was that the system had to be "active", i.e. it monitors the slippage of the wheel and then cut power accordingly. An easy route round this is to know the friction constant of the tarmac against the tyre (use practice telemetry)and then predict that any amount of acceleration above this will lead to a break in traction. Combat this by activating a legal system to combat the results, the anti-stall system could be used to modulate the clutch maybe? Bingo. Set the correct parameters for each corner, link that to the engine map (which is totally legal to change) and then have a menu to alter to friction constant in case of rain.
TC was always, always prevalent in F1 until the standardised ECU and I'd be surprised if there aren't a few people trying to get round that in some way now.
A great example of this is McLaren's F-duct. If this was a nice sport then Martin Whitmarsh would have said "hold on lads, the spirit of the rules say we can't do that, it's a movable aerodynamic aid", instead they looked at the rules and figured that it was fine as long as the aid wasn't mechanically movable - blocking a hole in the front of the car with Button's knee doesn't count.
The reason for the ban on TC is as much to do with it being so hard to define as it is hard to find. A common school of thought was that the system had to be "active", i.e. it monitors the slippage of the wheel and then cut power accordingly. An easy route round this is to know the friction constant of the tarmac against the tyre (use practice telemetry)and then predict that any amount of acceleration above this will lead to a break in traction. Combat this by activating a legal system to combat the results, the anti-stall system could be used to modulate the clutch maybe? Bingo. Set the correct parameters for each corner, link that to the engine map (which is totally legal to change) and then have a menu to alter to friction constant in case of rain.
TC was always, always prevalent in F1 until the standardised ECU and I'd be surprised if there aren't a few people trying to get round that in some way now.
Conian said:
I'm sure that many people draw the line between 'innovation lateral thinking' and 'cheating' based on who they support and/or dislike for various other reasons, I draw your attention to the following Blackadder quote:
Darling: So you see, Blackadder, Field Marshal Haig is most anxious to eliminate all these German spies.
Melchett: Filthy Hun weasels fighting their dirty underhand war!
Darling: And, fortunately, one of *our* spies--
Melchett: Splendid fellows, brave heroes, risking life and limb for Blighty!
Definitely. How on earth could this thread have got to 3 pages without people remembering Colin Chapman/Lewis telling porkies to get Trulli DQ'd/the spy scandal etc, etc, etc.Darling: So you see, Blackadder, Field Marshal Haig is most anxious to eliminate all these German spies.
Melchett: Filthy Hun weasels fighting their dirty underhand war!
Darling: And, fortunately, one of *our* spies--
Melchett: Splendid fellows, brave heroes, risking life and limb for Blighty!
For truely brilliant rule bending see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_Yunick
StevieBee said:
heebeegeetee said:
Fair enough, but let's remember that Senna was a driver, not an engineer. An incredibly gifted driver, but there are also a lot of incredibly gifted engineers in that pit lane.
I'm sure if Senna had heard something that concerned him, one of those engineers would soon have been stood in the same spot.
Fair point. I'm sure if Senna had heard something that concerned him, one of those engineers would soon have been stood in the same spot.
There's also the theory that they were all doing it or trying to do it so "let's not make too much of a fuss our ours will get spotted too!"
Bedazzled said:
Hear hear. Most of the other cheats from the Benetton 'crazy gang' (Schuey, Briatore, Symonds, etc) have been found out but I'm amazed mud hasn't stuck to Ross Brawn as he was technical director while all this was going on.
Interestingly talking of Brawn despite their "money problems" last year, cutting staff and wanting Button to take a pay cut for 2010 (until Mercedes bought them out) Brawn GP made a £98.5million profit last year.http://adamcooperf1.com/2010/09/14/brawn-gp-made-9...
mattikake said:
Who said anything about aquaplaning? There is middle ground between dry traction and water-skiing you know.
Yes but TC won't sort it all out, let alone aquaplaning.mattikake said:
He only won in Belgium because Senna tried to stay out on slicks (and proceeded to hold up 4 cars on wets for 2 laps, including Schumi) and Mansell retired whilst he was catching Schumi fast. It was a victory of luck.
Mansell finished second in 1992. Schumi won because he changed to slicks at the right moment and the Williams team pitted too late.mattikake said:
In the other wet races in '91, '92 and '93, Schumi was soundly beaten by Senna and/or Mansell in the wet, and even didn't do so well against Rubens in Donnington and was having an evens race-long scrap with the renowned rainmaster Brundle (not) in Belgium '91. (remembering of course, Senna and Mansell proved instantly outstanding in their first wet races).
Pretty average performance and certainly not outstanding.
Average performances and yet you reckon TC is a great benefit - well no wonder because Williams had the best car in the early 90s.Pretty average performance and certainly not outstanding.
Mansell was then above average in the early 80's. He couldn't solidly beat De Anglesis over a season and yet Senna - in only his second full season proved to be the better driver at Lotus when paired up with Elio.
Edited by entropy on Wednesday 15th September 00:59
mattikake said:
In the other wet races in '91, '92 and '93, Schumi was soundly beaten by Senna and/or Mansell in the wet, and even didn't do so well against Rubens in Donnington and was having an evens race-long scrap with the renowned rainmaster Brundle (not) in Belgium '91. (remembering of course, Senna and Mansell proved instantly outstanding in their first wet races).
Pretty average performance and certainly not outstanding.
Do you really think that it is surprising that Schumacher was not as fast as Mansell and Senna in the wet when they had traction control and Schumacher did not?Pretty average performance and certainly not outstanding.
The Donington GP was the first race with the proper 1993 Benetton car (having used a variant of their 1992 car in the early races) and traction control was still not available.
One of the reasons Barrichello did so well at Donington was that the Jordan was one of the few cars that did have traction control.
Derek Smith said:
as if Hill (who lapped Prost in identical machiery at a soaking Donington) couldn't hope to be anywhere near as good.
Small point of note, Hill did not lap Prost at Donington. Hill finished 35 seconds ahead of Prost. Prost was more than 40 seconds ahead of Hill when he stalled the car during a pitstop and lost approximately a minute.ralphrj said:
Derek Smith said:
as if Hill (who lapped Prost in identical machiery at a soaking Donington) couldn't hope to be anywhere near as good.
Small point of note, Hill did not lap Prost at Donington. Hill finished 35 seconds ahead of Prost. Prost was more than 40 seconds ahead of Hill when he stalled the car during a pitstop and lost approximately a minute.Gassing Station | General Motorsport | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff