During F1 practice this last weekend, there was a segment on the steering wheels. They showed three knobs on the wheel and said they were for controlling the differential, but didn’t give any more explanation than that. They also mentioned that these came into play after the removal of traction control. I’m thinking that they have some variation of what we usually call a limited slip differential, and these knobs control the amount of slip under acceleration and deceleration (braking or over run) (like varying it from 80/60 to 60/40 or whatever). That would explain two of the knobs, what about the third? What does it do? Plus, even if I’m right, that just explains what two of the knobs do, not how they do it.
Does anyone know more about these real-time adjustable differentials? What do these three knobs do and how do they do it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_slip_differential
On another note, I was under the impression that limiting the slip during deceleration (braking or over-run) was useful in preventing trailing throttle oversteer. This article seems to imply the opposite: “An inexperienced driver can easily spin the car when using a 2 way LSD if they lift the throttle suddenly, expecting the car to settle like a conventional open differential.” I thought a limited slip helped prevent spins when you lift throttle suddenly, by preventing the outside wheel from spinning way faster than the inside wheel, thus keep the car on a straighter line that if the outside wheel were able to spin as fast as it could.