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Software Glitch Robs Formula 1 World Champ of Season's First Win (theregister.co.uk)
Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton was left fuming after a software glitch denied him an easy win in the first race of the 2018 season on Sunday. From a report: Hamilton held a comfortable lead in Australia's Melbourne grand prix from the start. After pitting for fresh rubber ahead of the Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel, Hamilton looked set for an easy win. Then both of the American Haas team's cars had to be taken off the circuit after their wheel nuts became loose. That triggered a virtual safety car (VSC). The VSC is a fairly new concept: while active, the drivers have to slow down, they cannot overtake, and they must not go below minimum times for each circuit sector. Failure to follow the rules will result in penalties. This is all done to preserve the race state while giving safety marshals time to clear debris or vehicles off the track.
While the VSC was active on Sunday, second-placed Vettel ducked into the pit lane, where the virtual car's speed rules did not apply, picked up fresh tires, and emerged ahead of Hamilton to take first place. Vettel was able to do this because Hamilton's car software miscalculated the minimum sector time according to the VSC rules, causing the Brit to slow down more than was necessary. The code thought Vettel would spend 15 seconds in the pits; the Ferrari driver and his team took just 11 seconds.
While the VSC was active on Sunday, second-placed Vettel ducked into the pit lane, where the virtual car's speed rules did not apply, picked up fresh tires, and emerged ahead of Hamilton to take first place. Vettel was able to do this because Hamilton's car software miscalculated the minimum sector time according to the VSC rules, causing the Brit to slow down more than was necessary. The code thought Vettel would spend 15 seconds in the pits; the Ferrari driver and his team took just 11 seconds.
Seems like an oversight of the VSC requirements. If the goal is to preserve the race state and pit stops are somehow exempted, then that seems like a loophole.
It shouldn't be 'guessing' what the pit time is going to be to slow down for, it should be some mandatory amount.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
... this is why I'm not watching F1 anymore.
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
...there seems to be a point when the extra rules tacked-on do more to establish that rules-lawyers win, than they do to promote safety. Obviously no one wants a repeat of the 1955 Le Mans crash that killed dozens of spectators plus the driver, but as the audience we want to see drivers with nerves of steel that challenge both track conditions and each other. Over-regulate and we may as well just turn it over to computers, and then we're left with what amounts to an oversized RC car race.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The thing is that whether or not it would be in software, his team told the driver that Vettel would be longer in the pitstops than they expected.
His team should've been looking out for the actual pitstop time, so they could correctly pace the safety car, even if the software was giving him an estimate of 12-16s which is the average, if the team does exceptionally well or they decide last minute not to change 4 tires and fill up completely (which some pit stops have been done in 2-3s range) he's going to be overtaken.
In the end, it was a great pitstop and his team miscalculated, whether or not the computer miscalculated, there is an entire team of people that can see and communicate in advance that 'you better catch up now'.
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it's not the code it's gaming the rules of the event
Video of the pit stop:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I don't watch F1 anymore.
I love motorsport, (used to compete, too), and as a fully paid-up BSD geek neckbeard, am far from being a Luddite...but this kind of crap is what puts both drivers and audiences off F1
Hamilton's a fantastic driver, and like the "greats" before him, has said publicly that he would like nothing better than to have more control over the car.
Yes, they're technologial marvels, but it's all gone too far - a comeptitive driver with a good, working car should not lose this way.
Come on , the guy is a robot, he has less personality than a boiled potato.
There are Race Stewards, but there was no question of anything wrong here.
Bernie before and now the current owners of F1 have lost sight of what motorsport is about. Its supposed to be spectacle, not some techno wank fest with drivers almost along for the ride. The whole hybrid engine thing is a joke as now there isn't even a sound spectacle to make up for the lack of decent racing. If they truly gave a damn about the enviroment as they claim then stop the whole circus - the amount of fuel saved with the new engines is an insignificant blip compared to the thousands of tons used in transporting cars and drivers around the world.
Frankly no one would miss it - racing enthusiasts have moved on.
There's Formula One in a nutshell: Once in a blue moon the car behind somehow, inexplicably, overtakes the car that was ahead, and everybody freaks out. The cars didn't finish the race in the same order they started, and people start crying about what went wrong and how to fix it.
There is, but seemingly no rules were broken.
I'm not at all sure how this is a software problem, because the intent of the rules is clearly to keep the racers moving slowly and in order, and if you can shortcut your way through the pit lane to get ahead (intentionally or not), the solution surely isn't to speed up the cars that are slowed down for safety purposes, but to speed down the pit lane, or to make sure that any "accidental" passes are corrected before the race restarts.
It looks like someone is using software to do something stupid rather than software being stupid; that seems to fit with the theme of this century so far.
It's not so much the pits are a shortcut, it's that they are less of a long-cut in circumstances where the VSC is applied, so in this particular case you have an advantage if your competitor has stopped but you haven't when the VSC happens. The software problem was that the necessary gap wasn't calculated properly so given Hamilton probably could have closed the gap if he needed to, it wasn't shown that he needed to.
can we move to vr with no safety car? and fireballs when the cars crash?
It wasn't one incident - the VSC was issued for Magnussen stopping on track, and then the full safety car was issued two laps later for Grosjean stopping in a worse position.
It's also a clarion call to stop referring to auto racing as a sport. Once win-lose status comes down to software, it should not be permissible to refer to a race as a "sporting event."
Sport (noun): an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.
Winning requires precision and talent from the entire team. The drivers are phenomenal athletes - racing an F1 car is not just sitting there and turning the wheel, it's physically extremely demanding. The racing is to entertain the entire fanbase.
Sounds like this fits the definition of sport perfectly.
If you see no difference between children playing at park and F1, then, well, yeah, have fun doing that.