Shiftless

If you’ve been following the ongoing changes in Formula One over the course of this season, then you’ll no doubt be aware of the hotbed of controversy revolving around advanced electronics, such as traction control, semi-automatic gearboxes, and even launch control for standing starts. Enthusiasts and pundits alike, have expressed concern that racing a modern Formula One car has become more like a video game and less a test of a driver’s skill to control the car.

If we look back 40 years, to when Phil Hill won the Formula One Driver’s Championship in his Ferrari “Sharknose,” Hill’s only “driver aid” was a clean pair of spare goggles. For Hill and many of the subsequent champions who didn’t benefit from these advances, racing a Formula One car required not only nerve and a certain “seat of the pants” sense of what the car was doing, but also the keen skills of threshold braking and accurate, lightning-fast gear changes. According to many experts, it is the loss of this last driver skill that has eliminated so much of the passing (and therefore excitement) in Formula One.