DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - Massa: Too many buttons on the steering wheel

**steevyjeors** · 01-18-2011, 02:20 AM

If you look at the onboard laps of let's say 10 years ago, the buttons on the steering wheel have gradually increased ten fold, yet the majority of the drivers seemed to have adapted to them effortlessly. Are there more accidents happening because of the increase in buttons? No. IMO KERS is just a gimmick in the name of technology, and this adjustable rear wing has all the possibilities of becoming a big FAIL, but these are optional for all teams, and any of the top teams would be foolish not to utilize them, so naturally the drivers HAVE to adapt to them. Also, saying "too much" does sound more like a whinge than an opinion.

Many of the buttons on an F1 car are for functions that are to be adjusted when the driver isn't busy, like engine mapping or differential settings. The KERS and rear wing buttons are going to be used when the driver is going to be concentrating on overtaking.

IMO this is the particular problem. The speed differential between the overtaking and overtaken car at the end of a straight is going to be potentially massive as you may have a car using both KERS and a low drag rear wing coming up behind a car that may already have used up its KERS that lap with a high drag rear wing. On top of that you have the overtaking driver twiddling with buttons at the same time. The scope for a large accident is pretty big.

But a bigger point is, how do you expect drivers to describe challenges they face without it being called whinging? If one of your friends tells you that an exam is hard or a particular colleague is tough to work with do you automatically call him a whinger? Personally I find it extremely interesting when drivers talk about new regulations and the effect it will have on their driving.

01-18-2011, 02:20 AM	#30
steevyjeors Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 464 Senior Member	If you look at the onboard laps of let's say 10 years ago, the buttons on the steering wheel have gradually increased ten fold, yet the majority of the drivers seemed to have adapted to them effortlessly. Are there more accidents happening because of the increase in buttons? No. IMO KERS is just a gimmick in the name of technology, and this adjustable rear wing has all the possibilities of becoming a big FAIL, but these are optional for all teams, and any of the top teams would be foolish not to utilize them, so naturally the drivers HAVE to adapt to them. Also, saying "too much" does sound more like a whinge than an opinion. Many of the buttons on an F1 car are for functions that are to be adjusted when the driver isn't busy, like engine mapping or differential settings. The KERS and rear wing buttons are going to be used when the driver is going to be concentrating on overtaking. IMO this is the particular problem. The speed differential between the overtaking and overtaken car at the end of a straight is going to be potentially massive as you may have a car using both KERS and a low drag rear wing coming up behind a car that may already have used up its KERS that lap with a high drag rear wing. On top of that you have the overtaking driver twiddling with buttons at the same time. The scope for a large accident is pretty big. But a bigger point is, how do you expect drivers to describe challenges they face without it being called whinging? If one of your friends tells you that an exam is hard or a particular colleague is tough to work with do you automatically call him a whinger? Personally I find it extremely interesting when drivers talk about new regulations and the effect it will have on their driving.
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