Manual traction control

[Matt2412]

Is Manual Traction Control the Next Frontier in F1?

With F1 teams always seeking ways to push the boundaries of performance within the regulations, could a manual version of traction control be the next big innovation?

Imagine this: a system where a computer analyses real-time data—wheel slip, tire grip, and track conditions—to calculate the exact edge of traction. Instead of automatically cutting power (which would be illegal under current rules), the computer simply displays feedback to the driver, letting them know how close they are to losing grip. It wouldn't intervene, but rather assist the driver in making precision decisions through tricky corners.

Here’s the big question: would such a system be feasible and, more importantly, legal under the current F1 regulations? Since the system isn’t actively controlling the car, but rather informing the driver, could it bypass the traction control ban? Or would this kind of computer feedback be considered an unfair advantage? Articles 9 and 8 don’t seem to directly ban such an implementation.

What do you think—could this concept be used by a team, or would it be a step too far within the rules?

[AR3-GP]

Are you wondering about Hamilton's traction metrics?

[JordanMugen]

In other series it is allowed to program the shift lights to show whether there is wheelspin. ls that allowed in Formula One?

[Greg Locock]

"would such a system be feasible" yes

[Matt2412]

Yes, Hamiltons comments about “Traction Metrics” got me thinking.

I suppose it all comes down to whether such a visual/audial representation of available grip is permissible. One could argue that the driver already has aides to show revs, tyre temperatures etc this would fall into the same category.

[PapayaFan481]

Manual traction control.....aka my right foot

[AR3-GP]

Technical regulations 9.2.2 says it is forbidden to notify the driver of wheel spin. In theory it doesn't forbid notifying the driver of yaw slip and brake locking but both of these things are easily observed by the driver. The driver can see the front wheel under rotating, and the driver can feel yaw slip.

[Matt2412]

It might be semantics but the “onset of wheel spin” to me is retrospective ie the wheels have started slipping.

The idea here is to tell the driver how far they are from that happening.

[CMSMJ1]

It might be semantics but the “onset of wheel spin” to me is retrospective ie the wheels have started slipping.

The idea here is to tell the driver how far they are from that happening.

Do you drive, ride or do anything that you think that an alert of slippage would be useful? Do you drive karts?

I've ridden MTB for 30 years and I raced* motorbikes for a couple years before I had kids and in these activities, though not car racing, I think any sort of alert would be too late. I'm handy in a kart**

Am I missing something? How does a secondary alert beat the backside, the guts or rest of the body in dealing with lack of traction?

* Slow, but I won the final 2 races I where l entered
** I beat my son mostly

[AR3-GP]

It might be semantics but the “onset of wheel spin” to me is retrospective ie the wheels have started slipping.

The idea here is to tell the driver how far they are from that happening.

Do you drive, ride or do anything that you think that an alert of slippage would be useful? Do you drive karts?

I've ridden MTB for 30 years and I raced* motorbikes for a couple years before I had kids and in these activities, though not car racing, I think any sort of alert would be too late. I'm handy in a kart**

Am I missing something? How does a secondary alert beat the backside, the guts or rest of the body in dealing with lack of traction?

* Slow, but I won the final 2 races I where l entered
** I beat my son mostly

It's done in other championships. I've seen it on the Audi prototypes from the early 2000s as well.

[CMSMJ1]

It might be semantics but the “onset of wheel spin” to me is retrospective ie the wheels have started slipping.

The idea here is to tell the driver how far they are from that happening.

Do you drive, ride or do anything that you think that an alert of slippage would be useful? Do you drive karts?

I've ridden MTB for 30 years and I raced* motorbikes for a couple years before I had kids and in these activities, though not car racing, I think any sort of alert would be too late. I'm handy in a kart**

Am I missing something? How does a secondary alert beat the backside, the guts or rest of the body in dealing with lack of traction?

* Slow, but I won the final 2 races I where l entered
** I beat my son mostly

It's done in other championships. I've seen it on the Audi prototypes from the early 2000s as well.

https://i.postimg.cc/fyJ3HtVp/image.png

That's a great lap.

Those lights are illuminated for other reasons though?

[AR3-GP]

Do you drive, ride or do anything that you think that an alert of slippage would be useful? Do you drive karts?

I've ridden MTB for 30 years and I raced* motorbikes for a couple years before I had kids and in these activities, though not car racing, I think any sort of alert would be too late. I'm handy in a kart**

Am I missing something? How does a secondary alert beat the backside, the guts or rest of the body in dealing with lack of traction?

* Slow, but I won the final 2 races I where l entered
** I beat my son mostly

It's done in other championships. I've seen it on the Audi prototypes from the early 2000s as well.

https://i.postimg.cc/fyJ3HtVp/image.png

That's a great lap.

Those lights are illuminated for other reasons though?

Yes there are 3 purposes of the lights.

1) Wheel spin on corner exit
2) Lockup on corner entry (driver can't see the tires with closed wheel)
3) Lift and coast marker, the lights "count up" to the coast marker (for energy harvesting, fuel efficiency).

[BanMeToo]

This is a better example. They are real

[AaronWood]

It might be semantics but the “onset of wheel spin” to me is retrospective ie the wheels have started slipping.
The idea here is to tell the driver how far they are from that happening.

Do you drive, ride or do anything that you think that an alert of slippage would be useful? Do you drive karts?

I've ridden MTB for 30 years and I raced* motorbikes for a couple years before I had kids and in these activities, though not car racing, I think any sort of alert would be too late. I'm handy in a kart**

Am I missing something? How does a secondary alert beat the backside, the guts or rest of the body in dealing with lack of traction?

* Slow, but I won the final 2 races I where l entered
** I beat my son mostly

It's done in other championships. I've seen it on the Audi prototypes from the early 2000s as well.

https://i.postimg.cc/fyJ3HtVp/image.png

WOW, that lap looked insanely on the edge. Where the pole laps of old LMP1h's were faster, but I've never seen them need to wrestle the car that much over a lap. 255kph into the Porsche curves, WOW. As much as the cars are now much heavier and less powerful now, they are still quite incredible machines.

[Hoffman900]

Co-authored with Ferrari
Time-Optimal Low-Level Control and Gearshift Strategies for the Formula 1 Hybrid Electric Powertrain

https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/1/171

Abstract

Today, Formula 1 race cars are equipped with complex hybrid electric powertrains that display significant cross-couplings between the internal combustion engine and the electrical energy recovery system. Given that a large number of these phenomena are strongly engine-speed dependent, not only the energy management but also the gearshift strategy significantly influence the achievable lap time for a given fuel and battery budget. Therefore, in this paper we propose a detailed low-level mathematical model of the Formula 1 powertrain suited for numerical optimization, and solve the time-optimal control problem in a computationally efficient way. First, we describe the powertrain dynamics by means of first principle modeling approaches and neural network techniques, with a strong focus on the low-level actuation of the internal combustion engine and its coupling with the energy recovery system. Next, we relax the integer decision variable related to the gearbox by applying outer convexification and solve the resulting optimization problem. Our results show that the energy consumption budgets not only influence the fuel mass flow and electric boosting operation, but also the gearshift strategy and the low-level engine operation, e.g., the intake manifold pressure evolution, the air-to-fuel ratio or the turbine waste-gate position.

Low-level Online Control of the Formula 1 Power Unit with Feedforward Cylinder Deactivation


https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.00372

Since 2014, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile has prescribed a parallel hybrid powertrain for the Formula 1 race cars. The complex low-level interactions between the thermal and the electrical part represent a non-trivial and challenging system to be controlled online. We present a novel controller architecture composed of a supervisory controller for the energy management, a feedforward cylinder deactivation controller, and a track region-dependent low-level nonlinear model predictive controller to optimize the engine actuators. Except for the nonlinear model predictive controller, the proposed controller subsystems are computationally inexpensive and are real time capable. The framework is tested and validated in a simulation environment for several realistic scenarios disturbed by driver actions or grip conditions on the track. In particular, we analyze how the control architecture deals with an unexpected gearshift trajectory during an acceleration phase. Further, we demonstrate how an increased maximum velocity trajectory impacts the online low-level controller. Our results show a suboptimality over an entire lap with respect to the benchmark solution of 49 ms and 64 ms, respectively, which we deem acceptable. Compared to the same control architecture with full knowledge of the disturbances, the suboptimality amounted to only 2 ms and 17 ms. For all case studies we show that the cylinder deactivation capability decreases the suboptimality by 7 to 8 ms.