Seems wild that they can code and deploy an update of a critical-seeming component in the field like that. I thought such a firmware update would need extensive QA in the lab, along with root causing why this bug slipped through their processes anyway.
But maybe that's the difference between shipping a controller for F1 versus shipping one for an industrial or consumer product? shrug.
I'm wondering how good the simulators are. At the start of the season, they were still learning the systems trying to figure out why they were losing power in the straights. So depending on the driver, issues may or may not become apparent. That's like trying to debug why an email can only be sent to a recipient less than 500 miles away.
Anthony Davidson who is the Mercedes test driver said that the teams can simulate these scenarios and it seemed that the Mercedes cars were not affected so it seems that other teams hadn't done similar testing in various scenarios.
A question for someone who knows more about F1: Is this firmware shared by all cars? Or some local server at the track the cars connect to? Why is F1 able to control individual cars like this? The article is very light on details as to what exactly is going on...
The firmware situation is mixed. The ECU hardware is a standard TAG700 from McLaren. Basically these are software-defined ECUs where you can do whatever. However, FIA has some rules on what you're allowed to modify and has some "compulsory" software in there for monitoring and competition regulatory reasons. It appears there was very limited testing of this module in wet conditions which seems to have affected a lot of vehicles. (I work in Motorsports)
Wow. I just assumed it wouldn’t be firmware because going from making a fix in 50 minutes to having cars flying at hundreds of miles per hour on that firmware is kind of nuts
F1 vehicles have a lot of actively controlled systems - Engine, MGU, Diff, Brake Bias, Aero etc. Their way of allowing active control but preventing "driver aids" like traction control, torque vectoring is to tightly regulate and give them a box where they can place their controls and what inputs they are allowed to use.
Basically, there's an endless struggle between "how much do we let automation control?" If there were no such rules, the role of the driver would be far less than it is now, which would effectively reduce competition.
There's some debate but it's kinda settled, it's the pinnacle of motorsports so no driver aids, they are moving away from hybrids, realizing road car relevance/parity is no longer the direction
Traction control was allowed before 2008. The problem was that it trivialized some aspects of driving - drivers could floor the throttle through turns at little to no risk. (I suspect there may have also been some concerns that drivers who pushed traction control too far could have easily ended up in unrecoverable situations.)
We should allow batting machines for baseball players to hit the ball more reliably as well. Poker players should play with their cards face up. I agree.
Manually controlling to the limits of the car is a big part of the skill of racing.
The entire purpose of traction control is to reduce the driver skill required when cornering and braking. This is why traction control is omnipresent in consumer vehicles, because the vast majority of road drivers are awful.
FIA bans traction control so as to place more emphasis on driver skill.
The teams use a single homologated ECU to prevent driver aids. I would assume it doesn’t have a downlink on-track to prevent tampering, but presumably with umbilical cord connected in the garage during red flag they can make changes, which the FIA probably sent over. Who knows.
Lets all vent in one more place. How this kind of regs get forced is sad. All the casual fans want something fun to watch. All the serious fans want NA engines. The drivers hate these "power units".
Moved from one of the most fun auto sports to an EV mess.
The fact that they were able to vibe code ( You can't truly deliver a code without testing gates in place, let alone release to production, the cars themselves), tells:
Seems wild that they can code and deploy an update of a critical-seeming component in the field like that. I thought such a firmware update would need extensive QA in the lab, along with root causing why this bug slipped through their processes anyway.
But maybe that's the difference between shipping a controller for F1 versus shipping one for an industrial or consumer product? shrug.
It seems they simply disabled a bunch of power limits. Probably just settings, rather than an actual code update.
I'm wondering how good the simulators are. At the start of the season, they were still learning the systems trying to figure out why they were losing power in the straights. So depending on the driver, issues may or may not become apparent. That's like trying to debug why an email can only be sent to a recipient less than 500 miles away.
Anthony Davidson who is the Mercedes test driver said that the teams can simulate these scenarios and it seemed that the Mercedes cars were not affected so it seems that other teams hadn't done similar testing in various scenarios.
I think those engineers had some memories of their FSAE / FSUK days during that patch.
It was probably just "config" changes or changing some hard-coded constants. So relatively straightforward.
A question for someone who knows more about F1: Is this firmware shared by all cars? Or some local server at the track the cars connect to? Why is F1 able to control individual cars like this? The article is very light on details as to what exactly is going on...
The firmware situation is mixed. The ECU hardware is a standard TAG700 from McLaren. Basically these are software-defined ECUs where you can do whatever. However, FIA has some rules on what you're allowed to modify and has some "compulsory" software in there for monitoring and competition regulatory reasons. It appears there was very limited testing of this module in wet conditions which seems to have affected a lot of vehicles. (I work in Motorsports)
Wow. I just assumed it wouldn’t be firmware because going from making a fix in 50 minutes to having cars flying at hundreds of miles per hour on that firmware is kind of nuts
So basically like mandatory rootkit anticheat for online games?
F1 vehicles have a lot of actively controlled systems - Engine, MGU, Diff, Brake Bias, Aero etc. Their way of allowing active control but preventing "driver aids" like traction control, torque vectoring is to tightly regulate and give them a box where they can place their controls and what inputs they are allowed to use.
The FIA has this software to stop teams from creating a form of traction control (which has been banned for a good while now)
Why? To increase chances of crashes that produces more views?
Basically, there's an endless struggle between "how much do we let automation control?" If there were no such rules, the role of the driver would be far less than it is now, which would effectively reduce competition.
There's some debate but it's kinda settled, it's the pinnacle of motorsports so no driver aids, they are moving away from hybrids, realizing road car relevance/parity is no longer the direction
Traction control was allowed before 2008. The problem was that it trivialized some aspects of driving - drivers could floor the throttle through turns at little to no risk. (I suspect there may have also been some concerns that drivers who pushed traction control too far could have easily ended up in unrecoverable situations.)
There's some interesting discussion of the history and technical aspects at: https://www.f1-forecast.com/pdf/F1-Files/Honda/F1-SP2_25e.pd...
I am not big in F1, but my understanding is that the primary goal is to have the driver be more relevant over the car/firmware producers.
Traction control removes of the most fundamental skills of a driver. It’s like allowing ABS.
We should allow batting machines for baseball players to hit the ball more reliably as well. Poker players should play with their cards face up. I agree.
Manually controlling to the limits of the car is a big part of the skill of racing.
The entire purpose of traction control is to reduce the driver skill required when cornering and braking. This is why traction control is omnipresent in consumer vehicles, because the vast majority of road drivers are awful.
FIA bans traction control so as to place more emphasis on driver skill.
They all run the same ECU and the same firmware on it, yeah. Teams can control some parameters though. It's to stop any kind of traction control.
The teams use a single homologated ECU to prevent driver aids. I would assume it doesn’t have a downlink on-track to prevent tampering, but presumably with umbilical cord connected in the garage during red flag they can make changes, which the FIA probably sent over. Who knows.
I can't not read it as "They vibe coded a patch in 50 minutes". Had they used Sol 6.1 they would still be waiting
Still waiting for 6.1 sol to patch a UI bug as am reading this
Time to go back to NA engines, the hybrids don't give the rock concert wall of sound
Lets all vent in one more place. How this kind of regs get forced is sad. All the casual fans want something fun to watch. All the serious fans want NA engines. The drivers hate these "power units".
Honestly at this point, bring back the V10's.
The Enshittification era keeps on giving.
Moved from one of the most fun auto sports to an EV mess. The fact that they were able to vibe code ( You can't truly deliver a code without testing gates in place, let alone release to production, the cars themselves), tells:
1: The teams no longer own the car
2: F1 has become Formula E 2.0
F1 teams have never fully owned the car, you’ll notice they all look pretty similar. The FIA has a lot of rules around the construction of the cars
FIA, the FIFA of motorsport.
Gotta love how people assume software patches have never been prepared in an emergency before LLMs. Ever heard of Apollo 14??
Apollo 14? Is that a new model?