"Ferrari's traction control system debut at Portugal was thus met with the suspicious eyes of the Englishman. Dubious about the new switch on his steering wheel, Mansell turned it off suspecting it a ploy to make his car slower!"
Traction control is often berated as a driver aid that undoubtedly takes away from driver input and therefore the spectacle. Yet the performance advantage was so great that even the legendary Michael Schumacher was a fan of flying out of corners with the computer managing wheel spin rather than his foot. In response to critics on the eve of its legalisation in 2001 he countered "maybe a monkey could drive - but not as fast"; indicating that the sacrifice of skill was worth the pushing a car to extreme speeds.
The Advantage
The energy going through a racing car is mesmorising. Huge G forces try to wrestle the car off the track while monumental power from the engine presses the car towards the horizon. Therefore its not hard to see how both of these forces act on the rear axle and ultimately tyres. Miscalculate the power delivery and these forces could see you facing the other direction in a cloud of smoke and gravel.
A Road Car Technology
Before the dawn of the digital age engineers realised the importance of less wheel spin and more traction and provided a mechanical solution. A 'limited slip differential' transfers drive from a slipping tyre to the opposing side through the use of clever gear trains feeding the axle. Yet the traction was not 100% efficient, in that the slipping tyre would still sap a little power.
Traction control was actually born out of mass produced road cars, pioneered by Buick in the 1971 'Riviera'. Rudimentary yet ground-breaking digital technology allowed a computer to detect difference in speed between the front and rear wheels through 2 sensors. If its ham-footed driver hit the throttle too hard and span up the rear tyres the engine power was cut back through ignition control until things settled down. The advantages were especially big when driving in low grip conditions such as snow or rain. Unfortunately such a system must have seemed space age to your average early 70's hick backwater U.S garage mechanic and was unreliable. Couple this with cost of production and politics and it was dropped a couple years later.
It would be well over a decade before Europe and Japan took notice. With the advent of Anti-Lock Braking Systems (ABS) high-end vehicles now had sensors monitoring the speed of individual wheels. This allowed the system to be more precise and also worked in conjunction with ABS to apply individual brakes to stop wheels from spinning. These systems are now nearly standard on today's vehicles and its development has seen the old mechanical limited slip differentials phased out. Indeed you certainly could feel like Schumacher on a hot lap as you enjoy slingshotting out of bends with control in your road car. But when did this technology break into Formula 1?
Fireworks At The Debut
It was 1990 and Harvey Postlewaite and his Ferrari technicians designed a basic traction control system ready for the Portuguese Grand Prix. At this time their driver Alain Prost was fighting for the championship against Ayrton Senna, while team mate Nigel Mansell was struggling with team favouritism.
Earlier that season Mansell had grabbed pole position in front of his home crowd at Silverstone. In envy Prost ordered the team to swap his car with Mansell's without the latter's consent. When this all transpired Mansell was furious, throwing his gloves into the crowd after his gearbox failed in the race and announcing his retirement from the sport at the end of the year. Ferrari's traction control system debut at Portugal was thus met with the suspicious eyes of the Englishman. Dubious about the new switch on his steering wheel, Mansell turned it off suspecting it a ploy to make his car slower! The traction control worked, Prost launched off the line as Mansell nearly lost control of his car with wheel spin. Unfortunately for Prost he had to swerve to avoid this and lost position allowing Mansell past to ultimately win the race. When teams returned to Portugal again a fortnight before Christmas for testing in the wet, Ferrari's two second advantage attracted attention. Once the wheel sensors were spotted it became apparent and traction control became common place.
The first systems employed were basic in that they cut the spark from the ignition system; misfiring the engine in order to reduce power. This raised stresses and exhaust temperature dramatically. Overfuelling was also an issue, leading to oil being washed away which could lunch the power unit entirely. Alternative systems cut fuel which helped reduce consumption. However it wasn't until McLaren introduced 'fly-by-wire' in 1992 - that is the throttle being operated by a sensor on the pedal rather than by cables - that a whole new area opened up for traction control. When the team finally turned it on at the Hungarian Grand Prix the cars electronic brain was able to limit power by controlling the air through the throttle butterflies. This was greatly efficient and helped Senna win the race, though not enough to beat Mansell's active suspension Williams to the Championship.
The End of Science Fiction Race Cars
With the combination of traction control and other driving aids such as active suspension, anti-lock brakes, automatic gearboxes (and even four wheel steering in the works) electronics were paramount by 1993. The increasing lack of driver input and ramp up in speed made the FIA extremely nervous. This led to a large scale ban on driver aids and an end to this 'science fiction' era. Unfortunately the decade so far had seen the cars developed to rely on these aids to keep the cars glued to the race track. With the carpet literally swept from underneath 1994 would see drivers struggling for control and huge accidents. Two of these accidents would claim the lives of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger at Imola.
Raised Eyebrows
Further damage to the sport's integrity would surface that year with claims of teams illegally using traction control at races, namely Benneton. With Michael Schumacher's blistering race starts seeming to good to be true, finger pointing began. Team boss Flavio Briatore has bent more rules in the sport than his string of supermodel escapades. However he flat-out denied all allegations in a year that saw his team win the World Championship. It wasn't until the FIA analysed the cars electronics that these allegations reached fever pitch. It was possible for teams to 'hide' programming code for traction control through complex methods making
policing extremely difficult. This time however 2 months of intense investigation revealed that code was covertly present. Benneton's defense was this system was only activated for rare use in testing and the FIA were unable to prove the contrary.
As the season developed it seemed Benneton were not the only ones under the spotlight. Eyebrows were raised at Ferrari and McLaren from leaks and whispers in the paddock.
Fast forward to 2001 and the FIA finally admitted defeat with policing this technology. The ever increasing complexity of hiding code made scrutineering extremely difficult.
Final Hoorah
This new era of traction control in the sport would be much different. The system itself could now combine ignition timing, fuel cutting and throttle butterflies to control the wheel spin accurately within milliseconds - not possible in the comparatively slow and bulky micro-processing of the early 90's. All this allowed the driver to simply 'point and squirt' the car out of the bends with perfect traction. Couple this with huge strides in downforce and screaming engines nudging 1000 horse power, the early 2000's saw lap times only beaten in very recent years of the sport. While the driver still needed to ensure he didn't apply too much throttle to overshoot and run wide, the days of undesired wheel spin were out of the equation - much to the anger of purists.
The final nail in the coffin came however in 2008 when the FIA finally implemented a standardised engine control unit used by all teams. With the code now in the hands of the FIA they seized their opportunity to ban the technology, welcomed by a vast number of fans who wanted further driver skill. While I was one of them one can not dismiss the enticing rabbit hole of innovation and speed the search for traction led us down!
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