Williams fears 'paddock prison'

Team chief Frank Williams hopes the “poison in the paddock” does not return following the crackdown on electronic gizmos in Formula One.

The Williams boss has backed the decision to ban traction and launch control this season as long as motor sport bosses can ensure no team is cheating.

Traction control, which makes car control easier, will be outlawed from this July’s British Grand Prix while launch control – another electronic aid which virtually guarantees a flawless start – could also go at the same time.

Formula One banned traction control at the end of the 1993 season but it returned at the 2001 Spanish Grand Prix because the FIA, the sport’s world governing body, admitted it could not police the system.

The FIA are confident new technology will detect cheats while a reward of around £660,000 is on offer to anybody who proves a team is acting against the rules.

“I just hope that they can be policed better than they had been before,” said Williams.

“We at Williams often refer to the poison in the paddock regarding traction control for all of those years.

“God forbid it comes back but I believe the FIA is prepared to include the manufacturers and the teams in satisfactory electronic controls that really can detect anyone that is not playing the game.

“The only reason traction control came back in Barcelona in 2001 was because the FIA felt it could not properly be policed. It wasn’t that teams were desperate to have it.

“It will be nice to see some drivers able to exploit their vehicles better than others purely by talent, the spectacle should improve usefully but not dramatically.”

Williams admits he does have reservations about the way some of the regulation changes aimed at improving the show and reducing costs were forced through by FIA president Max Mosley last month.

“We knew January 15 was going to be a dramatic day and Max did not disappoint us,” added Williams.

“One or two of the regulations vexed Williams and maybe one or two other teams. We have difficulty with the way they were introduced, but we support most of them.

“Max felt he had to react dramatically but there are procedures in the Concorde Agreement and these weren’t always respected but I understand why Max did it that way.”

Former grand prix driver Gerhard Berger, now motor sport boss at Williams’ engine suppliers BMW, has also come out in support of the move to ban driver aids.

“I think the last two years the drivers get more and more help from electronics and other things which leads us in the wrong direction, especially from my side looking as an ex-driver view and from the side as a fan,” said the Austrian.

“What we want to see at the end of the year is not just the best technology but the best driver. Having good starts, bad starts, overtaking at the first corner is what we all want to see.

“We want to see driver error at the start, we want to see cars coming out of a corner sideways and we want to see the driver than can handle this in a better way than another driver.

“That’s what we missed last year so most of the regulation changes went in a good direction. What comes out of it we will see this season.”