F1 2020: Let’s talk about Traction Control

It is somewhat redundant to say, but the racing series known as F1 puts us as beings on the very edge of what is possible right now. The engineering that goes into such a racing series, looks on the surface like sci-fi levels of distant. However, it is bringing us closer to basic applications for modern cars. The 1.6-liter V6 hybrid engine with about 1000 brake horsepower is magnificent, however, an engine is only as good as the car it is in. The aerodynamics alone stand as a testament to aerospace engineering, creating what is the most powerful downforce that we can (so far) conceive for such a light yet powerful car.

Every single bit of an F1 car, even the slowest of the bunch, is something to marvel at. Is it practical? No. So what is the point of it? Well, it is putting that 1000 brake horsepower into the back tires and going 200+ MPH. To translate that to human speak: That’s a lot of power and a lot of speed. What makes that a little harder is a mountain of rules dictated by the FIA, which simply points at any electronic driver-aid and shouts the word “No!” loudly in your ear.

Driver-aids are the simple things you get in cars: Traction control, ABS, and other little bits that would make it easier to drive. Now, ABS simply stands for Anti-lock Braking System, which would prevent the brakes from locking up under heavy braking, causing tires to also lock up and creating flat spots. If you watch F1, you know these things already. That isn’t what I want to talk about today, it’s a tricky enough mistress I try to avoid.

The FIA’s F1 Technical Regulations, 9.3, on traction control state: “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 torque demand by the driver.” To translate that for humans, you can’t have a computer system that prevents your driven wheels (the back two) from giving you (the driver) the amount of power you demand when pressing on the throttle. Thus you can (and will) spin if you demand all 1000 horses as you peel away from the grid.

Traction control, or rather the lack of it, is a nightmare. I can guarantee, if you are a man and you’ve played an F1 game for the first time, you’ll have turned off all the assists and immediately got repayment for it. I know you have because you did it in Monaco. Everyone does it because you think you are the best driver in the world. Humility is a great virtue when driving an F1 car, they are not timid beasts and they aren’t docile either.

Now I’ve been trying to get a proper handle on these beasts consecutively since F1 2019 was released back in 2019 (duh). I’d been playing F1 games on and off again since the PS2 era, back when some form of traction control was allowed in the racing series. However, they were also very different cars back then with vastly different designs, different tires, and lower power output by the engines. The 2020 cars are easily far more powerful, bigger, and angrier when you don’t know how to control them. Game design has also changed quite a bit since even the PS3 era when Codemasters took over the series fully in 2010.

It was around the Turkish Gran Prix last year when I dusted off the PS3 and my copy of F1 2010; this was not long after I said future F1 games should have classic tracks too. I did the normal thing of setting up all the assists I’d been used to as of late: A little bit of traction control, ABS on, and the full racing line while I’m learning the track again. Traction control in that game is useless, you might as well turn it off because the cars are like glue to the ground. Yes, I see how strange it is to say that when you are the man that made a Ferrari flip in the swimming pool section at Monaco two years ago.

“What is your point, you fool?” Well, I’ve gotten to that point of being able to drive without traction control in the fastest cars F1 can throw at you, and do it without spinning and swearing. I know someone, somewhere, is currently laughing and thinking “it’s easy”! However, they probably use a steering wheel and peddles which would make it easier. A PS4 controller is a bit of a different story, as a pedal would have (I’d hope so) a much further distance before you’re 100% on the throttle. You’ve got more finesse.

Most people will stamp on that loud pedal in an effort to gain all that speed lost in the corner when trying to get out of the slower corners, especially slow hairpins. To bluntly put it, that kind of stupidity will get you killed, believe me, I know. A PS4 or Xbox One controller isn’t always the best at being delicate when applying that small amount of pressure coming out of a corner, a tiny twitch and the car will snap out of control. It isn’t impossible to temper yourself, it is just very very frustrating to learn this temperament.

This is the advice bit: The best way to not spin off at every single turn you take is to take a few spins. Watch what it is that you are doing, listen to the car, and learn from that. Often when you are losing traction you are hitting the rev-limiter on low gears, so “short shift” by jumping from 3rd or 2nd gear early and you’ll not have as much trouble. Though, given how I’ve set up my ERS Overtake button to be on a press of R3 (why does that default to R1?), in long races, applying this boost out of corners can be a little sore as you short shift, apply ERS, and hit a DRS zone all at once coming out of a corner.

What I’ve come to learn, is a way of solving some of those baked-in issues. Some issues are created by not bothering to learn and others relying too much on medium traction control assists. The solution is to simply drop down into a lower-powered car. Either try traction assists turned off in other games with lower-powered cars, or drop into F2 and do a few laps in the junior formula. Yes, it is there partly to give you more of a story in the career mode, but F2 is also an amazing learning tool as the cars are just a step down from the actual thing for a reason.

If you continue to plant the throttle on the ground, you are an idiot. The best places to really try and learn a controlled throttle application would be Hungary at turn 1, most of Brazil, Monaco, and Canada. Anywhere with tricky turns, like Bahrain’s turn 1, 2, and 3, while they are not the hardest, they aren’t advised. You are slowest at the apex of 1, 2 you are picking up the throttle still, and 3 you are at speed and planted before the DRS zone. Hungary turn 1 is more or less a hairpin-like turn, slowing you right down from 8th gear to 3rd, with the need to be in 6th again by the little kink halfway up the short DRS zone.

At first, picking up the throttle as slowly as you need to can be awkward and feels like you’ve somewhat de-evolved as a driver, going slowly. The trick is teaching yourself where that rev limit is, not by looking at the UI in the third person modes, or the UI of the dash on the wheel, but simply the feeling of the car and the sound. It feels weird to say it, but if you can’t gauge what the car feels like either through the controller or a wheel you are using, you aren’t going to have an easy job.

Arguably Codemasters have perfected that feeling, which is so important to driving an F1 (and F2) car: the feeling of being able to tell if that balance is wrong. You won’t get it instantly, of course, but after a little while, you’ll begin to have some sort of “precognition” to tell when you are getting snap over or understeer. You’ll feel the balance of the car changes as you swing the backend out and spin, so you’ll be able to tell when you are losing traction. That’s when you are pressing a little too hard.

Before, as I often see in online comments, you say “oh, but it is not perfect.” Yeah, really Sherlock? A video game controlled by a small bit of plastic that’s $40-$120 isn’t a perfect one-for-one simulation to driving a beast of machinery that costs hundreds of millions. Please state something more obvious, as that was laced with more nuance than the job I would put here if I were allowed to talk about adult products.

Back to the point: Being able to tell when the car is sliding a little too much, and being able to tell where the knife edge is on the speed to loss of traction, is a skill you need to develop. You aren’t going to learn this in 5-minutes from the moment you first boot up an F1 game, not that it might take as long as I’ve let it take either. Of course, you’ll want to progress from full traction control assists, to medium, to none. You’ll want to do it quicker than you currently are. It will sound like some old waffling nonsense, but you need to take that frustration and put it into focusing on the task at hand.

The entire issue is being too headstrong and demanding far too much power than the car can take in the very moment. It takes only a few laps without spinning and keeping pace and it will all click perfectly. That’s all it took for me and I lead Brazil for 68 laps from 8th on the grid. Once it clicks and you’re able to keep pace, you’ll start speeding up as you’ll start getting onto that knife edge that driving an F1 car is all about. What might also help is not doing the stupid thing I do, driving full race weekends, on that path madness lies. Nonetheless, even an idiot like myself can be in the top 2000 in some time trials because of this simple assist being disabled.

I can already hear you say “what about in the rain?” To which I say: Jump in a river of very angry lizards, because my hand still hurts from the few laps I did in the rain, around both Brazil and Silverstone. That is a level of caution that is reserved for anti-vaxxer hypochondriacs with a fear of needles. If you think driving without traction control assists is hard in the dry, you are not ready to drive in the wet without the assist.