alt Hacker NewsA 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...
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The FIA has this software to stop teams from creating a form of traction control (which has been banned for a good while now)
Yeah I was wondering this also. I had no idea they had some shared blob (or maybe they have source code access) that runs in all of their cars. Would love to read more about how this process works if anyone knows!
Wonder if they all get given a thumb drive at the start of the weekend with the latest patch. Release notes saying "library updates and bug fixes, now go drive 200mph around a track! Have fun!"
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.
TLDR: this wet weather mode stuff is FIA mandated because it is basically a rule enforcement around traction control. The loss of traction was related to a weird interaction in low-revving engines, turbos not kicking in, and the rest of the systems trying to do something that anti-traction control stuff would prevent.
During the Sky commentary, Anthony Davidson explained the specific electro-mechanical interactions based on what teams were telling him.
The FIA absolutely do need the ability to enforce regulations, but perhaps they should be monitoring for traction control and then stewarding that, rather than managing parts of the ECU firmware...
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.
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)