Mark Hughes: F1's Inside Line

Great! Formula 1 has finally bitten the bullet on traction control. The newly published 2008 technical regulations stipulate both a standard ECU and that "no car may be equipped with a system or device which is capable of preventing the driven wheels from spinning under power or of compensating for excessive throttle demand by the driver."

Furthermore, and just to be sure, the regs further stipulate: "Designs or systems which in addition to typical inherent hydraulic and mechanical properties are designed to, or have the effect of, adjusting or otherwise influencing the amount, or rate, of engagement being demanded by the FIA ECU, are not permitted." In other words, even if you think of a way around the ban - that's banned too!

It's a move in the right direction towards keeping the driver's ability significant in determining lap time. But its importance is more philosophical than nuts- and-bolts real: no new hierarchy of drivers is suddenly going to be revealed as they each have to fully control their throttles, and cars are not suddenly going to be cornering in a much more spectacular manner.

The most difficult bit of getting a downforce-generating car around a track quicker than the next guy comes in the part of the corner between turning the wheel and the corner's apex. Losing the barest minimum of entry speed so that the car is absolutely on its cornering limit immediately is a fiendishly difficult thing to do - and it is this that sorts out the men from the boys. Traction control does not work in this area.

Compared to that opening phase of the corner, getting on the power as early and hard as possible without inducing time-costing oversteer is relatively easy. Still difficult in absolute terms, but keeping the car on the limit is much easier than getting it there in the first place.

Mark Donohue famously described finding the limit from the corner exit as like walking a tightrope. But finding it going into the corner was akin to jumping onto a tightrope - much more difficult. Traction control helps the driver only in the easier part. That's why at the moment there is still a very noticeable difference between a great and a good driver in the same car - because the difference is rooted in the difficult part of the corner, ie the entry, and not in the traction-controlled phase.

So while it's good that what little help a driver currently gets from traction control is being removed, in practice it will have little effect. Regardless of the electronics, great throttle control from a driver is still not going to be greatly rewarded in very high downforce cars with high performance tyres and relatively little torque.

What's of far more concern is what might be coming a little further into the future. Because FIA president Max Mosley has already indicated - in a press briefing with BMW's Professor Goeschel late last year - that he is willing to consider Goeschel's requests for introducing more road car relevant technologies to F1, including stability control.

Let's get this straight: stability control would be massively more destructive to the importance of the driver than traction control ever could be. Stability control would work its evil at the very heart of where good drivers are separated from great drivers. That twilight zone where a great driver's feel and balance enable him to do miraculous things with a car is exactly where stability control would work - on the corner entry.

The car's theoretical limit would still be defined by its aerodynamic properties, but stability control would allow 100 per cent access to that limit by whoever was at the wheel. There would be no difference whatsoever between a Schumacher and an Irvine.

A driver would simply brake late, turn in at approximately the right speed, with approximately the right steering angle and the software would spit him out to the beginning of the next straight in exactly the same time as his team-mate. The implication would be the clinical removal of any element of sport from F1. It would become 100 per cent technical exercise/zero per cent sport. Literally.

Stability control is currently not feasible because of the banning of electronically controlled steering, the limit on the number of sensors and the ban on braking individual wheels. And no date has been set for its introduction. All we have is that worrying briefing from Munich where the president agreed that it might be a good idea.

If banning traction control is a good - albeit relatively insignificant - idea, how can anyone with a love of the sport seriously believe that the introduction of a technology much, much more damaging to the importance of driver ability is a good thing?

There is one scenario where it might all work, though: removal of all downforce from the cars. If that were to happen the corner exit would suddenly become vastly more difficult - every bit as difficult as the entry.

In such a case, in fact, stability control would probably assume less importance than traction control. Is there a grand vision behind all this? Or just a series of reactions to the various pressures, not going in any particular direction? It would be nice to think it was the former.