MARCH 2, 2004

A traction-control crisis in F1?

Paul Stoddart has been making noises in Australia about the car manufacturers not having honoured their deal last year to provide teams with "affordable engines" and he says he is going top reverse his decision about traction-control. This puts the FIA in something of a difficult position as the federation has said that it cannot introduce a ban on traction-control without considerable time and expense because policing such systems would be very difficult. At the same time the sport would suffer hugely as several teams have let it be known that their engines are so highly-developed that they must have traction-control in order to function. Stoddart may have a valid point about an agreement but his engine supply deal has been reduced in cost to around the $10m mark and so it could be argued that this is at an affordable level.