Jury out on 'aid-less' F1.

The present set up is the best, it sorts the men from the boys, they now have to drive as opposed to just press the pedal and steer.
Now lets have a standard front and rear wing for the next move.

Banning traction control is one of the best things that's happened to F1 in years. If only motoGP would follow suit...

I was just waiting for this...

This is supposed to be the pinnacle of motor sport with apparently the best drivers in the world and you are trying to say they are struggling without aids.

I didn't see any problems from LH, HK or KR. All of whom have come through GP2 quite recently and not spent the last eight years with cars doing half the job of driving for them...

Even if it doesn't improve overtaking, you can at least see the drives working a bit more, the cars sound better and you know they are doing all of the driving not having some electronics help them out. All good in my book

To me ban all the driver aids lets get back to where the drivers drive the car not the car driving itself relitivly speaking.But on another note I watched both GPs on Sunday and though the A1 grand prix has less finance than F1 i think a lot of there ideas are good.And makes good viewing

In my opinion from a spectators point of view, which is what it should all be about...., it was much better to see the cars moving and the drivers working. Whether overtaking was easier or not I cannot say but was the change ever meant to specifically improve overtaking directly? Surely if it makes mistakes more likely then there will be more overtaking by default??? It is good news and I support the changes.

i thought it worked quite well. some of the 'racing' we saw in the GP was created by the drivers making mistakes that they wouldnt have made with TC

its about time they dropped all the driver aids, these guys are payed a **** load of money, why should the car do all the work. its gotta be better for the sport in the long run. i hope bernie enjoyed it!!!!!

I still believe it is a conflict of interest allowing a subsidiary of Mclaren to supply standard ECU to all teams. This I think is the biggest issue within the sport at the moment, surely the ECU was developed around the Mclaren car with all other teams having to adapt to the new unit. I sure this will give them the edge for the first part of the season before the other teams get it all sorted under race conditions. Over taking still a huge problem, thew fact Raikonnen was stuck behind Barrichello for so long detracts from the spectacle, and the same happened to Alonso who was held up for a while

Further the comment on a standard ECU, all the engines now have the same maximun limit of 19000 rpm, and have almost the same power curve, this must hinder development by engineers who have their own ideas on the best way to obtain the maximum from their engines.

Nervous.....were you as vocal in your comments when the Bridgestone tyre was developed around Ferrari and ALL the other teams had to play catch-up ? you're not related to Jean Todt are you ? or anyone else at Ferrari for that matter ? ;)

@Nervous

And there was me thinking everyone was claiming the Ferrari was the fastest car in testing. And if ITV are to be believed the McLaren is not the best car off the start line... It's not like McLaren were using the ECU last year is it.

I do think the rev limit should be dropped though.

sennaforever, seems ur the one that cant be objective without allowing ur personal favourites to shine thru!

McLaren supplying ECU's to all the teams is equivalent to Ferrari OWNING Bridgestone & then supplying the rest of the teams too ... how happy would u be with that?

If you want to make random comparisons, at least make them alike.
While Bridgestone was working hard to win the championship with Ferrari, Michelin was working just as hard to do the same with ur teams, however at no stage were they forced to run with either manufacturer. They were free to choose Bridgestones but gambled on Michelin & it never worked out long term when the single tyre was selected. Who's fault is that?

The ditching of driver aids has got to be a good thing. it should make the good drivers have a bigger advantage over the less good ones and hopefully make people that arent ferrari or mclaren drivers win some races provided the drivers are up to it.

the next stage that needs to be taken is to make the cars able to follow each other more closely by ditching the wings. that should result in some closer racing out on the track and some more overtaking moves.

@FooAtari

Maybe they weren't using the exact same ECU, but u can believe this yrs one is based on whatever they were using last year ... which probably means there is as much Ferrari input (from the stolen documents) as from McLarens own R&D.

As for ITV, they're more like the LH supporters club than a commentary team.

So Dice by your own convoluted logic Ferrari are the ones gaining an advantage from the ECU?

In Melbourne The lack of traction control appeared to play a lesser part in the on track incidents. I would say the lack of "engine braking" caught more drivers out, as they were arriving at corners too fast, and it was not just the new boys, Kimi R had his moments over cooking corners on more than one occassion.
Personally I do not agree with the elimination of traction control, and would like to see it on more passanger cars, after all, isn't F1 the cutting edge of technology where inovatons filter down to road cars. As for engine braking, not new on heavy vehicles, but in F1 I see this as an oppurtunity to develop conventional braking, again to filter through to future road cars.

Nobody drives a road car fast enough or hard enough to need traction control. Have you ever seen a Daewoo Matiz (worst drivers on the road) wheelspinning off a roundabout? The cars dont have enough power. Anyway thats a bit off the subject, and banning TC is good - if only for watching the supreme car control when Lewis went in too fast and the back slid out - fantastic!

The McLaren ecu for all was a stupid decision. After all that happened last year, it was obvious there was gonna be a lot of controversy. If they wanted to stay out of trouble, someone else should ve provided the ecu, definitely not McLaren or Ferrari

How ya doing Dice, in reply to your comment to FooAtari can you reiterate on your comment to me "seems ur the one that cant be objective without allowing ur personal favourites to shine thru!" many thanks ;)

McLaren had to use Ferrari's tyres (Bridgestone) last year and did a good job so surely there can be no complaints about the ECU