Williams Hopes FIA can Police Traction Control Ban

Team owner Frank Williams expressed hopes that the FIA will be capable of enforcing the ban on electronic driver aids, and admitted he was not satisfied with the way the new regulations were imposed on the teams by the FIA.

"The only reason traction control came back in Barcelona in 2001 was because the FIA felt it could not properly be policed. It wasn't that teams were desperate to have it," Williams told reporters. "I just hope that they can be policed better than they had been before.

"We at Williams often refer to the 'poison' in the paddock regarding traction control for all of those years. God forbid it comes back but I believe the FIA is prepared to include the manufacturers and the teams in satisfactory electronic controls that really can detect anyone that is not playing the game."

Williams nonetheless said the ban on traction control should potentially improve the racing, but said it would not make a vast change. "It will be nice to see some drivers able to exploit their vehicles better than others purely by talent," he explained, "although the spectacle should improve usefully but not dramatically."

He also criticised the president of the FIA, Max Mosley, for the way in which the new regulation changes were imposed on the teams; Mosley met with the team owners on January 15th and effectively informed them of the changes, rather than bring it up for their voting.

"We knew January 15th was going to be a dramatic day and Max did not disappoint us," Williams said. "One or two of the regulations vexed Williams and maybe one or two other teams. We have difficulty with the way they were introduced, but we support most of them.

"Max felt he had to react dramatically but there are procedures in the Concorde Agreement and these weren't always respected."

"But I understand why Max did it that way," Williams added.