UNLIKE most of his peers, Rubens Barrichello remembers what it's like to be in total control of a Formula One car, so he can barely wait to start the new season.

"I feel like a boy with a new toy! Having driven without (traction control) for many years in the 1990s, it didn't take me long to adjust," Barrichello said of the biggest change in F1 this season. "It will throw up new challenges, particularly when it's wet, but they are challenges that I'm looking forward to." Traction control - in which onboard computers prevented excessive wheelspin - has now been banned from F1, and a standard electronic control unit will be installed on all cars to track data.

That puts the onus for controlled acceleration back on the driver, who can no longer just put his foot down and allow the computer to do the rest.

Traction control was allowed in F1 from 2001 to last season, so most contemporary drivers have no experience of racing in F1 without it. Ferrari's Felipe Massa is among them, and is looking forward to the challenge.

"If it's raining or difficult conditions, you have to be much more prepared," he said. "If you go full throttle to the corner, you'll spin."

Reigning F1 drivers' champion and last year's Australian GP winner Kimi Raikkonen said the impact of the ban will be seen most clearly in race starts

AUTOMATIC

"There are much more chances to lose places now," he said.

"Before it was more or less automatic. You had a good start and not so good but it was always very close.

"Now if you make a mistake you are going to be very slow off the grid. When it is wet it is quite tricky."

Two-time drivers champion Fernando Alonso, back at Renault after a season with McLaren, was also quickly adjusting to life without traction control and engine braking, which is also out this year.

"In the long run you feel the drop in the tires and you feel the loss of traction and the braking stability but nothing too big," he said.

Other areas of the car are improving to compensate for the decrease in electronics, he said.

McLaren's Lewis Hamilton is looking forward to the changes, too.

"As I said when they tried to introduce it, I thought it was a good idea because all the other categories I have driven in, we did not have traction control," he said. "I am not going to say if I prefer one to the other because they are both quite different to drive but this one is a challenge and everyone is in the same boat.

The technical changes came as F1 organisers try to curb massive technical spending by teams, and amid criticism from retired racers that the skill of current drivers was not being tested. - AP.

This article was first published in The New Paper on Mar 14, 2008.