F1 drivers do use TC if you listen to the engines on TV even in qualifying most of the cars are firing on less than 8 cylinders putting the power down.

btw, in 2008 TC wil be banned from F1, so i'm looking forward to proper 2008 F1 without TC in LFS

Quote from GianniC :

TC = traction control right ?
Pardon me for the silly question, but can someone briefly explain what it does exactly ?
And, most important, if you have TC on in the BF1, will it make you faster or slower, or does that depend on track/car ?

it reduces engine power on turn exit, so you don't spin... in f1 it also keeps tires at optimum slip angle (angle between tyre and direction of movement) to have maximum grip... so yes, it should be faster

In Indy Racing League - traction control is driver adjustable during a race.

As posted racing traction control systems allow optimal slippage, something very tough to do for a real life drive. Depending on the track it's worth a few seconds per lap even with an expert driver. Obviously it's possible to race without traction control but it's more prone to incidents and a tad slower.

No lift fast sequential shifters, like XTRAC, which shift in 30ms to 50ms (depending on rpm drop), shave off a few seconds per lap as well. LFS doesn't model these though, even though F1 cars have them.

Quote from GianniC :

TC = traction control right ?

yes.

Quote :

explain what it does exactly

Traction control can be ECU and/or brake based. Each wheel of a car may have speed sensors on them depending on the series. Without sensors all around, the rate of rpm acceleration is monitored by the ECU.

What a racing traction control system does is reduce engine power and/or apply individual wheel braking if it detects that a tire is slipping beyond a preset amount of allowed slippage. Small computers peform this function, just like the ECU in any car is actually a small computer.

Many racing classes, like FIA F1 don't allow braking to be used for traction control, so only the engine control is done. Usually fuel is cut off from one or more cylinders to reduce engine power.

In the racing classes that allow individual braking, in addition to engine management, the brakes distribute rear wheel torque in an optimal way beyond what a limited slip differential could do. It can also provide some ABS like control at the front on RWD cars, but unlike true ABS, it allows for optimal slippage instead of none.

Quote :

And, most important, if you have TC on in the BF1, will it make you faster or slower, or does that depend on track/car ?

Racing traction control systems will produce better lap times. A human can't match the millisecond reaction time of a computer and sensors.

I really like the TC, actually. What we really have now is another setup parameter to adjust. For all practical purposes I'm finding I'm adjusting the slip percentage in the way I adjust the power side differential setting in the other cars, and am using the engine braking parameter just like the coast side diff setting.

To me, this doesn't ruin anything having to do with driving skill at all, as raising the traction control slip percentage makes you accelerate faster out of the corners, but makes the car more oversteery in those situations, very much like what you get when you move towards a more locked differential. I think we'll find the fast guys using higher and higher slip percentage here, which is essentially less and less traction control in a way (although not literally).

Don't be afraid to fiddle with that engine braking parameter, folks. Reducing the percentage a lot makes a dramatic change in off-throttle turn in, increasing it a lot, even more so it seems than reducing coast side diff settings in the other cars. In fact, I haven't even touched the diff in the BF1 yet. So far all I've played with are wings and these other two settings.

I'm having a ball though for sure. This patch has really pushed the physics forward dramatically with the fixes in the tire model

Just finished watching the Imola Grand Prix, and a time during the battle between Alonso and Shumacher, they´re showing images from inside the Renault and displaying the car information, and the light of Traction Control just kept flashing... So, if the F1 world champion uses Traction Control, why shouldn't we?...

Thanks for answering my question