Tim Densham talks about the TC ban

The ING Renault Formula 1 Team’s chief designer, Tim Densham, runs though the modifications made to the 2008 car to compensate for the loss of traction control. The ban of traction control is one of the many new regulations for the 2008 season.

"Let’s just say that for me this ECU has a very strange shape, a triangular one, so it was clearly designed for a specific car last season. It’s the same thing for the power box that goes with it. The position and the angle of the connectors are proof of a bespoke design for another car. It took a month’s work by one of our engineers in the design office to adapt this ECU to the R27 for winter testing. We had to reposition all these components, and their cooling requirements were also different to what we already knew."

"These units won’t be installed where we put them for our winter testing with the R27. However, some things like the programme or the harness will be identical."

"No, not really. I don’t understand those who say that they’ve modified their cars because of this new factor. If a car is intrinsically good with traction control it’ll be good without it. Adapting to the new grip levels due to the lack of traction control will be done by the set-up more than by the design. On the other hand, it’s true that the loss of traction control could amplify a balance problem whose influence on performance was minimal up to now."

"Mechanical grip at the rear and tyre wear, in particular."

"Not at my level. There are some other very important things on my drawing board!"

Related newsarticles:
'A new factor for the 2008 season: ECU' -> http://www.f1technical.net/news/7601

'Denis Chevrier talks about the common ECU' -> http://www.f1technical.net/news/7680