rec.autos.simulators

Watching qualifying Sunday for Silverstone, the announcer made a comment
about " cutting the wires " . I have to assume he means driver aids? I had
though that things like ABS and traction control were ruled out long ago. Is
this not true?

I seem to remember a comment about the Honda Turbos having a complete data
uplinks package, so that anywhere in the world where the race is run, all
the on-board telemetry was being sent back to Japan. Then, as the race went
on, Honda could adjust the cars as they changed due to tire wear, lightened
fuel load, etc. Wasn't the banning of all this tech done to reduce the cost
of running a F1 team?

Just what driver aids are still used in the car?

And, a game using cars for the Turbo Era would seem really cool in my book.

Many thanks.

         http://www.racesimcentral.net/

. They say teams were

In order to combat this, speed sensors are now required to be placed on the
front wheels. Owing to the fact that a F1 car is rear wheel drive, it is now
not possible to detect wheelspin. In theory that is at least!

MS

It is true. However this race was supposed to ban the rev limiters
and make the drivers keep at 60kph in the pits. The drivers complained
that this was too unsafe, so FIA reversed it's rev limiter ruling. The
problem is that some teams were cheating and using the rev limiter
technology on the race track as a form of traction control. Remember
a few races ago when that Mclaren accidentally had it's fuel lid open?
What the hell was that all about? Obviously traction control...

When traction control is enabled, the fuel cover springs open. As
and added measure, the FIA made all the teams activate their
rear tail light when they are using traction control. So if you see
a car with it's fuel cover open and the tail light on, and the car
is not in the pits... Well then they are some cheating bastards :-)

As for cut tires? I always thought that meant the tires were
punctured ala Nascar or Cart racing.

--

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cisko [AT] ix [DOT] netcom [DOT] com

Ive been thinking a turbo era game would be cool since I saw a 85 race at
monaco. There was actually a lot of overtaking!!! At monaco no less....

Berno

That said, I support anything that makes the sport more exciting, but traction
control is not one of them.
I oso favour larger wings. Since they cut the sizes of those things, we don't
really see exciting overtaking anymore.

It's not the size of wings that has caused the lack of overtaking in F1. We
need more Mechanical Grip and LESS reliance on aerodynamic devices. The best
eras for overtaking were those where the following car could get into the
slipstream of the car behind and stay there on the entry of a corner without
washing away.
This is simply not possible as part of the norm in this day and age, where
the plank has severely reduced under car downforce and there is an even
greater reliance on wings and other appendages to produce grip. Just look at
how Schumacher languished in 8th place at Silverstone for lap after lap,
unable to do anything about the  car ahead, even though he was around 3-4
secs a lap faster. The days of barn door wings died with the turbo era. You
need to remember that in those days, cars had in excess of 1000 BHP in race
trim and over 1200 BHP in qualifying. They were able to utilise more
downforce because they had the additional power  to pull these things
through the air on the straights.

What we need is big fat slick tyres with mechanical of grip and more
progressive / less snappy performance on the edge of the envelope.

It's so sad to think that through the junior ranks of the sport, the
aspiring GP driver has to learn so many skills that used to be a
prerequisite for driving GP's only to have to throw them away now. Heeling
and toeing, driving with slicks, even manual shifting were all things that
seperated the great drivers from those who used to blow engines on a regular
basis. Nowadays, the best they can hope for is to have sufficient marketing
and political talents to enable them to get into a front of grid car. Very
rarely do you see a driver come from the back of the grid in a display of
inspiration simply because the cars do not allow it.

I feel sorry for the younger members of the F1 fan club. All they have are
the archives and stories of how it was.......

MS

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