Driver Aids

[Edmonton]

Do any of the driver aids like traction control,ABS,activesuspension etc provide any safety advantages?

[Redblurr]

Traction control in the wet and probably in the dry - they don't have ABS?

[Knowlesy]

Well when they were talking about banning electronics, Schuey got in a huff about the FIA not considering the drivers safety. Which is odd when you consider he drove for years without TC! ("or did he?" say the Schumi bashers! )

[Korr]

ABS and traction control certainly do enhance safety.

Active suspension...this is banned by the FIA, and has been for some time.

[DriverT]

ABS has been banned for years.

[esorniloc]

So has active suspension (end of 93).

[DriverT]

Originally posted by esorniloc
So has active suspension (end of 93).

Indeed, 2 posts above yours, the same info is quoted.

[avsfan733]

ABS and TC enhance safety most of the time...

but on the otherhand, all three (ABS TC and active suspension) are very dangerous when they fail because they provide different than normal responses

[DriverT]

Yes, but that's the chance you take with safety devices, or in fact pretty much any device.

[The Zuschauer]

ABS is dangerous. There are many times when it's safer for the driver to lock up all four wheels, such as in a spin.

ABS plays absolute havoc with a car thats in a spin, especially if it gets to the point of rolling backwards. It's also not very good at stopping a car on wet grass or on a loose surface.

Of course, F1 drivers are good enough to not need ABS, although if it were allowed, there could be a system whereby excessive brake pressure cancelled out the ABS - for scenarious such as a spin.

I would agree that TC enhances safety. It's certainly taken out the risk of spinning at the exit of a corner, which used to happen far more often.

Active suspension should never have been banned. Ask Frank Williams what he thinks about active suspension!

[Hungary 89]

Originally posted by The Zuschauer
Active suspension should never have been banned. Ask Frank Williams what he thinks about active suspension!

An Interesting statement would you care to elaborate
(Note I neither agree nor disagree just interested in your point of view)

TC should be banned, ABS should stay banned for the good of the sport.

avsfan733 made a good point there we have seen a few dangerous not to mension race ruining incidents over the years due the traction control throwing a wobbly mid corner

Slighty off the thread but I would have liked to see Williams CVT hit the track before it got banned

But while we are taling about safety may be we should consider getting rid of a lot of these fly by wire systems I mean Montoya trundling through some pretty quick corners at 20mph due to hydraulic failure is hardly condusive with safety

[The Zuschauer]

Active suspension is a definite step forward in technology on the spring/shocker setup.

Aside from performance gains, if active suspension were allowed, each car only needs set of active shocks. That saves sooooooo much money which F1 teams spend on carrying copious amounts of springs and shockers to every race meeting.

Performance-wise, there were some dramatic accidents which were blamed on active suspension failures. Whether or not they were caused by active suspension, active suspension has the capability to be a perfect shock absorbing system. The car can run at a very low and stable ride height, and can ride the bumps significantly better. This technology is (unsually) translatable to road cars. Launch control had some major issues in its early days, but with a bit of development, we don't see any major problems any more.

Frank Williams was furious when they outlawed active suspension, and to my knowledge, he's stood by his views that Formula One is missing out on a fantastic technology. It was outlawed based on safety reasons, but in reality, a well designed active suspension system can outperform the old system dramatically. The real reason (according to Frank) was that active suspension was ruled out because his cars were going too fast and people were worried about where the technology was headed.

So, it's cheaper, performs better and is translatable to road car technology.

[The Zuschauer]

Actually, to correct myself, I think it may have been ruled out as a driver aid?

But when was the last time you saw a driver controlling the way his car rode over bumps?

[Glen]

I thionk it constitutes a driver aid when implemented the way that they started to... They could (and did) fine tune the suspension characteristics for every section of the track - the car "knew" where it was on the circuit and adjusted itself accordingly. So you'd have different ride height for the straight (probably with the ride height front and rear being optimised to reduce drag) then you'd have maximum downforce for braking, blending to anoter setting mid-corner, etc.

I seriously doubt it would be cheaper when the full potential is taken in to account.

[The Zuschauer]

F1's are not allowed to know where they are on the track any more, as systems were getting complicated for gear changing etc.

As long as such a system didn't know where it was on the track, its behaviour should be quite predictable. I understand that there would be problems if a car spun and headed off onto the grass (for which the active suspension isn't tuned for), but the result couldn't be that much worse than for a conventional system.

Do you know how much money it costs Formula One teams to carry around countless sets of springs and shock absorbers to every race? Add to that the R&D costs that go into shock absorbers themselves, and the voodoo science involved in tuning them. How about the 7 post rigs that the teams have set up in their workshops, which work overtime during a Grand Prix weekend to find the optimal combination of springs/shocks? The list goes on and on (and on and on...)

[power&glory]

I have watched videos of races from the '92 season, where the Williams and McLarens and Bennetons are lapping the Ferraris like crazy- Ferrari were running at the back because they were developing an active suspension system, and racing what they were developing, almost like a season long test session. This of course meant that they were completely uncompetitive- what a shame that active suspension was banned after '93- they wasted an entire season. And wasn't that Michele Alboreto's last year of F1, driving for Ferrari? What a shame.

[Glen]

I don't doubt that F1 suspension is expensive - everything in F1 is expensive! I very much doubt that active would be a more economical solution. I also very much doubt that that F1 designers couldn't design a system which "knew" where the car was in an undetectable way - indeed, they probably already have for transmission systems. Possibly. Would make sense anyway - automatic deployment of different TC, gear change and differential maps according to local circuit characteristics.

[MrBluesman1]

Originally posted by power&glory
I have watched videos of races from the '92 season, where the Williams and McLarens and Bennetons are lapping the Ferraris like crazy- Ferrari were running at the back because they were developing an active suspension system, and racing what they were developing, almost like a season long test session. This of course meant that they were completely uncompetitive- what a shame that active suspension was banned after '93- they wasted an entire season. And wasn't that Michele Alboreto's last year of F1, driving for Ferrari? What a shame.

Michele Alboreto never raced for Ferrari in 92 he was with Footwork then in 93 switched to Scuderia Italia, then moved to Minardi in 94 to finish his F1 career. He raced for Ferrari from 84-88

[Adam43]

IIRC Active suspension was not banned because it was a driver aid, but because it was a moveable aerodynamic device.

[MrBluesman1]

Originally posted by AdamAshmore
IIRC Active suspension was not banned because it was a driver aid, but because it was a moveable aerodynamic device.

I was under the imperssion it was because of both reasons

[The Zuschauer]

Originally posted by Glen
I also very much doubt that that F1 designers couldn't design a system which "knew" where the car was in an undetectable way - indeed, they probably already have for transmission systems.

To the best of my knowledge, its illegal for a software system to know where the car is on the track. Also, as far as I know, every single line of code in a Formula One is checked by the FIA before it runs in the car.

I would think that any competent programmer would be able to spot sections of the code which are performing track memory functions. I believe it would be quite difficult to disguise that sort of code.

Also, I didn't know that active suspension was banned for being a moveable aerodynamic device. You learn a new thing every day!