(This copy was written in August 2001. For the 2004 season, drivers must use a manual clutch to accelerate away from the line. An automatic clutch can only be used above 100km/h - 62mph. Traction control is still allowed in every gear, and at every speed.)
TRACTION/LAUNCH CONTROL: Banned at the end of 1993, traction control has been reintroduced to Formula One and became 'the' topic of conversation in 2001. Both the drivers and their fans began a love-hate relationship with it as the season progressed.
Put simply, traction control is a system that compares the rate of rotation of a car's driven wheels with those that are not driven. Its sensors therefore detect whether the driven wheels are spinning excessively, according to a pre-set limit, and are thus squandering some of the power that has been fed to them as a driver 'floors' the throttle. To counteract this inefficiency, often between the apex of a corner and its exit when the driver is attempting to accelerate with maximum efficiency, the driven wheels can then be slowed either by applying a brake or, more commonly, by reducing the amount of power fed to them in order to maximise the car's traction.
When traction control was outlawed because it was thought it gave some teams an undue advantage, car designers started to use more technically advanced ways of achieving the same effect. One way was to measure the pressure in the airbox, with the higher pressures recorded at high speeds. This meant that the software cut the power to limit wheelspin. This was banned too and electronics wizards are thought to have implemented systems that calculated at what throttle application the wheels might spin to prevent that happening.
Typically, in the overly secretive world of Formula One, each team was convinced its rival had found a way of running a system that was traction control in all but name and the sport's governing body, the FIA, was unable to detect. The FIA then decided that everyone might as well have it back again so each team could be seen to be competing on a level playing field.
WHAT THE FANS AND DRIVERS THINK ABOUT IT: Industry politics aside though, F1 fans and the drivers hate traction control because they think it removes the requirement for a driver to have any skill other than braking and steering as, with traction control, they will simply be able to plant their foot hard on the throttle in the middle of a corner and the amount of power fed to the driven wheels will be controlled. No longer will delicacy on the throttle have to be among their skills along with delicacy of steering and braking. The result: Boring races and predictable behaviour on the track, just the thing the fan doesn't want to see.
"F1 is my passion, but traction control is not F1 as it takes too much away. The fans want to hear the engines roar. That's what they come for, not to hear the sound of the engine misifiring as you come out of a corner," says Jaguar's Eddie Irvine.
Ferrari's Rubens Barrichello is also no fan of traction control: "I don't like it. But, at the end of the day, if that's the way that we're going to bring equality between the teams, then that's a good thing," he says.
Controlling the amount of power to the driven wheels is performed by software programmed to alter the rate of fuel injection or ignition by a given amount according to the percentage of wheelspin. This software can also act as a form of launch control at the start of races. Unfortunately, the 2001 Barcelona, Austria and Monaco grand prix showed just how difficult it was to make the sophisticated software wizardry of launch control work efficiently in Formula One cars. Thanks to malfunctioning electronics, some systems behaved unpredictably and gave up the ghost, leaving cars and their frustrated drivers stalled on the starting grid.
The image of McLaren's David Coulthard pounding his steering wheel in frustration at the start of 2001's Monaco Grand Prix perhaps represents the most enduring image of a launch control failure. After a brilliant qualifying session, he had to start the race from the back, an incident which did serious damage to his chances of winning the 2001 drivers' crown.
WHAT TO EXPECT IN 2002: On the whole though, teams are managing to refine the process sufficiently to make the automatic start much more efficient than the best manual start. It's therefore very tempting to use it, even though some drivers, notably Jordan's Jarno Trulli, still refuse to use it, instead opting to start their cars manually.
For 2002, traction control will be joined by a host of new technical features, including speed limiters that will slow cars automatically as they approach an area in which marshals are waving yellow flags to indicate a hazard ahead. The safety car will then become defunct in 2003 as the cars will be limited by a 'speed profiler' that cuts their speed and maintains a safe gap between them.
This same system may be used to prevent the sort of collisions between cars travelling at different speeds in poor visibility, such as when Michael Schumacher ploughed into David Coulthard in the 1998 Belgian Grand Prix.