Mark Hughes: F1's Inside Line

Hate to be a party pooper, hate to say I told you so. But we've just had the first two days of non-traction control Formula 1 testing - and guess what? The ban has made virtually no difference. Cars and drivers are about where you'd expect them to be, no one is suddenly struggling, no one is unusually higher up than normal.

Furthermore, the reports back from the drivers are that the aerodynamic and tyre grip mean you barely notice the loss of traction control. For example, Anthony Davidson: "It's amazing how little you depend on traction control. We're here in cold weather, on hard tyres and still running through the development stages on the car and we haven't even begun to work on pedal maps or making it easier for the driver, and it's still surprising how aggressive you can be with the throttle.

"As soon as that downforce starts to kick in, the tyres have no real chance to slide or slip."

Traction control has been a hugely emotive subject in F1 for over a decade now, but the reality has never matched the emotion. F1 cars have enough downforce to smother whatever horsepower the engines have had during that time - and as such traction control is not a particularly powerful tool (unless the track is wet). It does give a measurable advantage and therefore it has been used, but that advantage is measured in fractions - and is small enough that it does not make for a significant differentiator between an average driver and a good one.

The part of the corner in which traction control works - approximately from the apex onwards - is not a particularly difficult part anyway when you have all that downforce working with you. The difficult part is maintaining the maximum possible speed into the corner. That is what really sorts the men from the boys - and in that part of the turn traction control/no traction control is entirely irrelevant.

In fact because of this, the parallel ban of electronically variable engine braking is almost certainly much more significant than the traction control ban - and yet we hear virtually nothing about that. Having software that helps prevent the rear wheels locking under braking by releasing just enough engine braking to keep the wheels turning is a big aid in allowing a driver to brake late into a corner - thus helping him in a much more challenging part of the corner than where traction control does its work. It is here where the interest should be.

However, even the ban of variable engine braking has not made that much difference. We may see more spins under braking on a green track, but as the track grip builds the job will become easier. Besides, braking late is just one, very unsubtle, way of taking a lot of momentum into a corner.

Coming off the brakes early - like Mika Hakkinen used to do to extremes - or trading off braking force with building lateral force, are the other more skilful ways of doing it. They have the advantage of keeping the aerodynamic platform of the car more stable, thereby giving it more grip than if the driver simply stands very late on the brakes then comes off them again - wildly altering the airflow - before turning in. Pretty much every driver in F1 is good enough to know, or at least feel, this. So even the more powerful ban will not be all that powerful.

Philosophically it's important for fans to know that it is the driver's right foot that is controlling the throttle 100 per cent. But the reality is that his throttle foot is not a very important part of the equation when you have so much more grip than power. Many observers never have cottoned on to the fact that his left foot is much the more powerful tool - and have been largely unaware that his left foot too has not been 100 per cent connected to the inputs the car is receiving. Well, even if they didn't know that filter was there, they can take comfort from the fact that it's now gone. But it won't make much difference.

What we are likely to see are cars that get a little sideways when a driver makes an error - is a little too heavy-footed with the throttle - in a slow speed corner. We'll see this in second and early third gear corners. But the drivers are generally too good to be making those sorts of mistakes very often; more usually what you will see will look exactly as it did when we had traction control. In slow corners in the wet it will be different.

We'll see longer slides, we'll hear how the driver is modulating throttle against wheelspin, helped by the fact that the wet weather tyres are designed to run greater slip angles than the dries in order to induce heat in them, whereas in the dry the big challenge is to minimise the heat build-up. The starts will be different too and will revert to being completely about the driver. So it's a move in the right direction - but a tiny one.

And what's more, do not forget that when the energy recovery systems are installed on the cars (currently planned for 2009) there can be no more standard ECUs, as everyone will have their own energy recovery systems. And if there are no more standard ECUs, then traction control comes straight back into F1 through the back door.

But don't worry, it really isn't such a big deal. What is a much bigger worry - and what we have warned of here before - is stability control, whereby the optimum speed into a corner could be software controlled. The original energy recovery proposals had electric motors working on each wheel - giving the perfect basis for stability control.

To Max Mosley's credit, once this was pointed out he got on the telephone to Michael Schumacher to ask if this would in fact be the case. When Michael replied in the affirmative, Max stipulated only one electric motor, sited between the front and rear wheels.

It's important we are vigilant against the technocrats - but it's equally important we understand which bits are important. It would have been very sad if we'd been so focused on getting rid of something relatively unimportant that we failed to notice something vastly more damaging getting under the radar.