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[bud]

if they ban this then they have to ban all forms of changing engine maps or mixtures! they all affect the torque power band. so all the knobs and switches that teams currently use will have to be banned as well. its quite possible other teams like Ferrari already have this system in place anyway just a different form of activating the torque band. you see Kimi and Felipe fiddling with the knobs on the steering wheels just before and out of corners from onboard shots. probably doing the exact same thing.

just with Mclarens turn of pace people look for obvious new appendages on the car for the performance boost.

But as i said earlier this McLaren paddle layout has been on the car since round 1 even with all their earlier traction issues!

[McLaren Fan]

its quite possible other teams like Ferrari already have this system in place anyway just a different form of activating the torque band. you see Kimi and Felipe fiddling with the knobs on the steering wheels just before and out of corners from onboard shots.

It's very possible. And, as you and Denthúl (I think) said, engine map sensors etc. alter the torque band by a not insignificant amount. I know it's not traction control, but if you really wanted to push the issue on driver inputs into the car, you could go as far as banning adjusting the braking balance, for that removes some of the skills a driver needs in braking by reducing the likelihood of locking up wheels. Braking too hard with too much forward-brake balance will lock the front wheels, for example.

[AKR]

if they ban this then they have to ban all forms of changing engine maps or mixtures! they all affect the torque power band. so all the knobs and switches that teams currently use will have to be banned as well. its quite possible other teams like Ferrari already have this system in place anyway just a different form of activating the torque band. you see Kimi and Felipe fiddling with the knobs on the steering wheels just before and out of corners from onboard shots. probably doing the exact same thing.

just with Mclarens turn of pace people look for obvious new appendages on the car for the performance boost.

But as i said earlier this McLaren paddle layout has been on the car since round 1 even with all their earlier traction issues!

If this is so Bud (and I believe you so this isn't a question against you but rather about the main issue here), why is then everybody making a big deal about McLaren's steering wheel? If it is like you say, then it isn't the likely reason for McLaren sudden super form in pace. It might just well be that they have improved dramtatically. Actually I wouldn't say dramtatically as the Ferraris were not all that much quicker prior to the last 2 races anyway.

[bud]

yet next year they are bringing in manual adjustable wings. even more things for drivers to adjust

and AKR even Amalgalm sell the model steering wheels, they have been for sale since around round 2 or 3 with 4 paddles. the journo who wrote the story has no access to the full working of the McLaren car yet everyone accepts his words as facts?
i mean cmon he is a journo and McLaren have turned their pace up ofcourse he would look for the most obvious reason... would be like talking up Ferrari's holy nose if that caused them to go 1 second faster yet on its own it doesnt do a whole lot

[AKR]

yet next year they are bringing in manual adjustable wings. even more things for drivers to adjust

and AKR even Amalgalm sell the model steering wheels, they have been for sale since around round 2 or 3 with 4 paddles. the journo who wrote the story has no access to the full working of the McLaren car yet everyone accepts his words as facts?
i mean cmon he is a journo and McLaren have turned their pace up ofcourse he would look for the most obvious reason... would be like talking up Ferrari's holy nose if that caused them to go 1 second faster yet on its own it doesnt do a whole lot

Come to think of it it was a British journalist that noted the wheel. What is it with the British always finding the "Bad" things on McLaren anyway? Was it not an Englishman that first reported the so called Ferrari technical data in McLaren hands at that photocopy shop? Anyway I hope Ferrari dominates Hungary, less so because they are my beloved team and more so to end these steering wheel "Cheating" rumours which I would say is just nothing.

[McLaren Fan]

the journo who wrote the story has no access to the full working of the McLaren car yet everyone accepts his words as facts?

As I said, the thing that has really annoyed me is that the steering wheel has been portrayed as a new component placed on the car in the last month or so and that is the sole reason for McLaren's improvement. What a load of cobblers.

[stonemonkey]

If the article is right about what the paddles are for and it's done through the engine mapping and mix controls, thinking about it it could give quite a big performance boost imo. I could see something like that working a couple of different ways, such as either having the wheel programmed presets that can you can go up and down through or by having the wheel go through a list of settings over a lap, so you could possibly change the settings which are pre programmed for every corner and every straight with all the settings and the points on the track they're changed worked out during practice. It's another thing the driver has to program himself with and definitely one for the playstation generation.

[McLaren Fan]

Count 4 paddles on this replica and guess what. It's from the MP4-22

http://www.amalgamcollection.com/en/pro ... 79e37b20f4

And look how many paddles are on this:

[Denthúl]

Having racked my brains for a while, I actually realised that I know that other teams have four paddles on a steering wheel. Top ones for gear up- and down-shifts, and the bottom ones for operating the clutch... I read an article that dissected the BMW Sauber F1.07's steering wheel a while back.

[7UpJordan]

I remember at Silverstone last year when they had the BMW Pit Lane Park, they had a section showing some of the parts used on the BMW. They had a steering wheel set-up so you could have a play around with its various functions and one of the guides showed me how the 2 bottom paddles work, and they do indeed control the clutch.

[McLaren Fan]

Could it be this article? http://www.f1technical.net/articles/30 Regardless of whether or not it was or wasn't, it has some good information. There's a video I found on You Tube about steering wheels: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXrBi1Y46zU . Excuse the dreadful presenter.

[Denthúl]

No, it was way more in-depth than that. It had Java-based interactive demonstration, too. I wish I could find it, to be honest, because it had all sorts of sample data when you pressed the various buttons.

[Mikep99]

Here is another video

Clicky

[McLaren Fan]

I've been doing a bit of general reading on a few other Formula One forums about this. I did see a few rumours which suggested that there was more to Ferrari's engine mapping controls than meets the eye. It's really all educated guessing because there's no official word etc., but mapping would have a not insignificant effect on torque etc., so perhaps Ferrari have found a way to increase the effect that adjusting the engine mapping has on torque. In that case, the only difference would be that Ferrari's system is not as user friendly as McLaren's paddle system.

[McLaren Fan]

Here's an image of the Ferrari steering wheel, with a knob which adjusts the torque settings: