Originally Posted by
celt
Simply don't understand it. Isn't it more challenging and rewarding to actually "drive" the car yourself?
It depends on whether they are allowed or not. In the mid 90s when we raced F1, especially on our damp and cold UK tracks, there wasn't any rule banning gyros. When you are racing on low grip tracks against cars with perfectly legal gyros saying it is better to "drive" it yourself isn't going to get you any extra laps.
The gyros were just a tuning aid, if the grip was good enough it was better to remove the gyro as you have more control, if it was slippery you added the gyro to help you get around. It was strange to drive as you didn't feel in full control, much like the way a boosted ESC will take over the throttle for you when it kicks in.
And sticking a gyro in doesn't just let the car drive itself, if you are spinning out every corner you will still spin out with a gyro. You can't just throw a chassis down with whatever setup and expect the gyro to control it so it drives around on rails, it just doesn't happen. The chassis still needs to be set up and you still need to drive it properly, the difference is you can dial in a bit more front end grip for a gyro.