Frentzen denies traction claim

As Jordan's Jarno Trulli claimed the top spot in free practice at Sepang yesterday, team-mate Heinz-Harald Frentzen spent much of the day protesting his innocence over Michael Schumacher's claim that the Jordan star had brought Formula One into disrepute with his alleged claims that Ferrari and Sauber were using illegal traction control.

On Thursday Schumacher had attacked Frentzen over the Jordan driver's alleged assertion after the Australian Grand Prix that Ferrari-powered Sauber driver Nick Heidfeld was running illegal traction control, an assertion he later also applied to the Ferrari of 2000. But yesterday, Frentzen insisted that he had been misrepresented in the German press and that he had never claimed the world champions or any Ferrari-powered team were breaking rules.

The Jordan number one said he had been referring to the possibility that teams had developed software that could mimic traction control by limiting wheel spin and that that was not illegal under the current rules. "I fully understand that Michael said what he said because so many newspapers wrote that I was claiming that Ferrari was using illegal traction control," said Frentzen. "It was written in some newspapers and if he gets to know it then of course he's pissed off.

"I never mentioned illegal traction control. I also haven't said that the FIA isn't able to analyse if someone is cheating," he added. "These talks about TCS are a never ending story. Every interview I've done since the end of last season has had a question about TC and I always had the same comment that I feel sad about it."

An exasperated Frentzen went on to say he hoped he would see a time when traction control was not a feature of Formula One but that he could see why it must now be implemented.

"I think the best way in the future as well is having a normal system that allows the driver to control the wheelspin by himself," he said. "I think this is the spirit of the sport and should be the spirit of the sport in the future but I understand as well that these days there are so many possibilities. The electronics are so advanced these days that you can work and have a system that works similar to traction control that is 100 per cent legal.

"This is the point. What is legal and what is illegal? This is the job of the FIA and I don't say that they do a bad job. But I think that one day we will get rid of all this shit and we'll drive again normally. That's my wish for Formula One. And I hope one day that the team owners and the FIA agrees with that."

The row over traction control blew up at Imola last year when FIA president Max Mosley revealed that the sport's governing body could no longer police the software being used by teams and that they were aware that at least one team had cheated during the 1999 season. Since then the sport has vacillated over the reintroduction of the system which was last used in 1993. In early February of this year, however, the reintroduction was given the go-ahead and TCS will be permissible from the Spanish Grand Prix on.

Many in the sport are against the system believing it dilutes the sport's skill level and yesterday Williams technical boss Patrick Head echoed Frentzen, admitting that he would rather race without TCS.

"With traction control it's a bit like the apple in the Garden of Eden," he said. "The trouble is once you've bitten it, it's very difficult to take it away and the concern has been that the trouble about all this talk about traction control and misfiring engines is that Formula One, like many other competitive activities, is a ripe environment for assuming that everyone else must be doing something that is wrong.

"I've always been one that appreciates being able to watch drivers power sliding cars - which is one of the reasons I hate these tyres we're using at the moment because they don't respond well to that type of driving," he added. "But I think it'll be a big sadness if traction control and very refined traction control remains part of motor racing from here on and I think it's something we've got to look at closely.

One solution that has been mooted is that teams should all be supplied with a common ECU (electronic control unit) for the engines so that transparency could be achieved in the teams' use of software but Head doubts that even that would solve the problem.

Meanwhile, out on track team-mate Jarno Trulli was keeping quiet and giving lie to Schumacher's suggestion that the Jordan is slower than it's closest rival. The Italian clocked a time of 1.38.846, just under a tenth faster than the defending world champion. Rubens Barrichello took third while Eddie Irvine pushed his Jaguar R2 to fifth behind David Coulthard in the first of the McLarens, although it is likely that the Irishman was running on ultra-sticky Bridgestones, rather than the harder compound most were trying. Frentzen himself wound up a respectable seventh - with both Saubers firmly behind him.