Comments on: MES denies teams could cheat on traction control

By: Sri

Sri — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 09:55:13 +0000

Quote Alianora La Canta:”…this is Microsoft, a company whose products invented the computer industry advice of not buying one of their products until the first service pack is released…”

Lol…. for one… i could not agree more. What next Mr. Mosley & dare i include Mr. Gates? A mid-season patch in the form of ECU_Soft_SP1, is that it?

By: Number 38

Number 38 — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 06:30:07 +0000

F1, the pinnacle of motorsport and therefore must be tied to the highest level of technology…..HA! Subaru had a viscous clutch no bigger than a CV joint which provided front to rear drive (slip) control in their road cars as far back as 1989. No ECU involved, just a mechanical part. Of course this would cause MadMax to add four more pages to the regs banning this device.

By: Alianora La Canta

Alianora La Canta — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:51:23 +0000

Eric M., some ECUs have already been distributed for the purposes of winter testing, though I wouldn’t be surprised if extra ones were reserved purely for individual races. I’m sure the FIA have a scheme to get all the ECU data back, but I don’t know what that is.

By: Alianora La Canta

Alianora La Canta — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:50:12 +0000

A traction control system wouldn’t even have to route through the ECU to function. A crude version only requires a method of sensing the horizontal and lateral speeds, a very small calculation chip (easy to hide anywhere in the car) and some sort of output to one or more systems that could do something about it. So TC is perfectly possible, no matter what tricks are tried with the ECU to secure it.

Remember also that this is Microsoft, a company whose products invented the computer industry advice of not buying one of their products until the first service pack is released…

By: alan

alan — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:00:36 +0000

did max say that their spy?? in the cab would get cheats – not again surely – is that why the fia needed an increase in licence money and fine payments!!

By: Eric M.

Eric M. — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:18:26 +0000

As for the ECU, what I’m curious about is when they will actually be distributed to the teams. Do they get a certain amount supplied to them at the beginning of the season, or do they get new ones before each race? And how often will the FIA take them back for examination?

By: Eric M.

Eric M. — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:09:30 +0000

???

All he did was snap off the front wing. It wasn’t that bad at all.

By: Vittorio84

Vittorio84 — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:51:01 +0000

Sorry for the off-topic, but I just want to inform you that today in Barcelona Nakajima had a terrible shunt with the new Williams FW30. He is ok now, we are waiting for some pictures. Anyway, the team has stopped their test because they think the reason of the accident was a problem with the wings.

By: milos

milos — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 12:08:13 +0000

If it is as foolproof and safe as Windows or IE then we can all be totally confident no one has even slight chance to cheat on TC

By: Michael K

Michael K — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 09:28:34 +0000

The Microsoft quote looks like a shameless plug from MES’s side to me. He basically stated that they developed the software on PC’s running Microsoft software. Maybe they got their Windows versions for free
With regards to the traction system, it depends on how you define that. To me it is a system that gets information from the wheel sensor and adjusts power in whatever way to prevent the loss of traction. Now even if you don’t have a wheel sensor you could get the data from the track/air/tire temps and then run a starting procedure which makes it unlikely that the wheels will slip. If this is the fastest way or whether even this is allowed I don’t know.