Electronic Control Units
The F1 world should start waking up sometime during the next couple of days. The summer break has been a welcome relief from the non-stop controversy of the 2007 season, but before we jump on the treadmill again I thought it’d be worth looking into the Electronic Control Unit contention bubbling under the surface.
Back in July 2006 the FIA awarded the sole supply of Formula 1 ECU’s to a joint venture by Microsoft / McLaren Electronic Systems. At the time there was a question mark over the choice, given that Magneti Marelli arguably had more experience in building F1 control units for multiple teams, but beyond the odd whisper not much was said at the time.
During the past couple of weeks the issue has come to the fore again. With teams beginning 2008 testing during the recent run at Spa Francorchamps they had a chance to try out the new boxes and by all accounts things haven’t been going too well. Firstly we had Flavio deriding the system, proclaiming his cars unable to start when the devices fitted, then Mario Theissen chimed in suggesting that they too experienced some pretty big issues.
Clive has some thoughts on the matter, and by and large I agree with him, but I also want to take a slightly different look at the situation. A look from a technical perspective.
Last month MES partner (and the bane of every office workers life) Microsoft, released a case study detailing their new involvement in Formula 1. Here’s what they had to say about it:
As part of the system, the information is mapped and configured using Excel. In addition, Microsoft SQL Server, combined with SharePoint Services, manages data from the car’s disparate data sources.
Uh-huh, so they’re planning on setting up a Formula 1 car using Excel, are they? I think we can see the real reason team bosses are freaking out!
In all seriousness that case study actually contains a whole bunch of decent information as to how the system will work. We already knew the reason for the introduction was to prevent illegal driver aids, to increase efficiency and to enable the FIA to monitor testing mileage. What I found interesting though was the fact that Microsoft have been partnering the McLaren team since 1999 and also that the first units were delivered to teams at the beginning of 2007.
This last fact is key, because it raises the question of why the complaints have started now, and why the intrinsic problems associated with plugging in a new box were not ironed out in the factories earlier this year?
I’m wondering if it has any bearing on the subject we briefly touched upon during last weeks show?
In the recently released FIA document entitled Formula One 2011: Chassis Regulation Framework the governing body states:
The under-tray will be specified by the Overtaking Working Group and designed to produce the aerodynamic characteristics required and to be mechanically stiff so that aero-elasticity issues are avoided. The part is not only to be prescribed, but also supplied by a third party.
While in this months Racecar Engineering magazine Patrick Head is quoted as saying:
All the cars are going to have the same running gear on them which will be the responsibility of the team that won the 2007 World Championship.
As we pointed out during the show, this brings a whole new dimension to the Ferrari / McLaren controversy, but after more thought I think it may also have bearing on the ECU issue too. If it makes sense to have a single under-tray then it also makes sense for a current Formula 1 team to design and build that part because no-one has more knowledge and experience of the car’s floor than actual teams. And if you have to pick someone, then best to choose the World Championship winning team, as presumably they have the best car. Right?
Right now McLaren are on course to win that championship this year and what the FIA have inadvertently caused is the potential that two major elements of an F1 car will be built by a single manufacturer. As we said before, there’s not going to be much Ferrari inside a Ferrari soon and that must be causing certain team principles a few sleepless nights.
Back to the original FIA decision, Microsoft are a pretty big company and there has long been rumour of sponsorship involvement from them, but nothing has ever materialised. Do you think that Max’s choice may have been swayed by the concept of bringing such a massive organisation into the motorsport world?
In truth I suspect Microsoft has very little to do with development of the onboard embedded systems. I would imagine that most work in Redmond comes at the other end of the system, with data analysis and information gathering. As you’d expect, the MES website details a whole bunch of products relating to telemetry capture and the like.
I’m sure this debate is only going to get more heated as time progresses and the more the governing body continues to pursue the single-supplier route of manufacturing race cars, it’s only going to get worse.
Now might not be a good time to raise the prospect of a McLaren backed ProDrive team entering the sport next year. They’re taking over the whole paddock!
August 19th, 2007 at 9:19 pmbrendan stallard said:
That’s a very comprehensive bit of work: thank you. It is very much appreciated by me that you limited the use of acronym.
I had to read it twice to make sure I got it all, but that’s cool.
I expect the excel issue is just a matter of putting something together for sponsorship and perhaps the usual dog of the past of making a proprietary application run looking as if its bespoke. Programmers used to make a ton of money making slight changes to the Graphical User Interface in the early days of Windows.
I dread the thought of putting MS post XP near any machinery of mine. Vista is a dog of horrible proportions. As you lot are AppleMunchers no doubt you are feeling smug:)
brendan
brendan
August 19th, 2007 at 9:22 pmClive said:
That’s an interesting perspective. I’m not sure that they planned it that way but you’re certainly right - it looks like a McLaren monopoly on the way. Down with standardisation! Variety is the spice of life!
August 19th, 2007 at 9:30 pmChristine said:
I’m not an AppleMuncher just yet. My laptop is slowly but surely on the way out, and I need an upgrade.
As Vista is the only choice, I’m leaning more and more towards the Mac but I’m a Windows girl at heart, and I just don’t know what to do.
August 20th, 2007 at 7:37 pmF1 Punter said:
So Ron an eventful race for Lewis there?
“Yes, the General Protection Fault at his second pitstop cost him around 20 seconds whilst we rebooted, but in the end because of Fernando’s retirement he was able to do enough”
Indeed, that looked nasty for Fernando, talk us through what happened:
“We are not sure at this stage exactly what caused the problem and we won’t until we have sync-ed his car back at the garage. All we know was that he saw the blue screen of death on his steering wheel and he lost drive”
Are you confident that you will overcome your reliability problems before the next race?
“We are hopeful, as Microsoft release their hotfixes next Thursday.”
And after that?
“With Service Pack 2 due for before the flyway races, we are confident that things will improve.”
Thanks Ron.
August 20th, 2007 at 8:00 pmme said:
haha, you know it’s going to happen. i was thinking more of this scenario though:
–
Can you tell us what happened at the beginning of the race?
“The engine lost power on the grid, we asked the driver to restart it but he hit ‘Shut Down’ by mistake.”
–
You say you lost radio contact during the race?
“About halfway through the first stint, the bundled Norton Anti-Virus trial software expired, so all communication was blocked.”
–
Last season your car was one of the fastest on the grid, can you explain why performance has been so poor this year?
“Unfortunately, our hardware is almost 6 months old, so it really struggles to run the latest Microsoft software. It’s the same for everybody though.”
–
ahh, there’s so much fun to be had with this.
August 20th, 2007 at 8:01 pmChristine said:
“All we know was that he saw the blue screen of death on his steering wheel and he lost drive.”
That is just brilliant!
August 20th, 2007 at 9:36 pmClive said:
What I want to know is: are the teams going to have to phone Redmond to activate the software every time they change an engine? Will there be rumours that Ferrari have installed a cheaper and better Linux version in their ECU (BMW too but who cares about them?) Will Apple start a rival series in which only a quarter of the entry list turns up?
Oh, there’s mileage in it, all right…