Traction control to be banned again from '08.
Formula 1 will reintroduce the ban on traction control systems from the 2008 season after the FIA agreed that specialised electronics will help them monitor the teams and remove the threat of cheating that saw the systems instigated in the first place.
The controversial system was first banned in 1994 in a bid to prevent advances in technology removing driver skill, but was allowed back into the sport in 2001 when it was deemed too difficult for the FIA to find out if teams were cheating by getting round it somehow.
Formula 1 will reintroduce the ban on traction control systems from the 2008 season after the FIA agreed that specialised electronics will help them monitor the teams and remove the threat of cheating that saw the systems instigated in the first place.
The controversial system was first banned in 1994 in a bid to prevent advances in technology removing driver skill, but was allowed back into the sport in 2001 when it was deemed too difficult for the FIA to find out if teams were cheating by getting round it somehow.
Purists have long complained that technology is taking the skill away from Formula 1, but with the FIA now able to monitor each car, traction control has been banned once again from next season in an attempt to again place driver skill over that of the machine.
The more vital of the two changes made to the 2008 regulations that also included re-clarification over clutch wear, the FIA statement read:
"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.
"Any device or system which notifies the driver of the onset of wheel spin is not permitted."
