Technical ECU's & McLaren Electronic Systems

[ExtremeNinja]

This is all so simple. The software on the computer (in the garage) that the Red Bull engineers use to communicate with the car (via the ECU) crashed and the system had to be rebooted. This happened at a critical moment of the GP during the warm up lap. McLaren are aware that there are some glitches in the software, have apologised and are working to ensure that the bugs are ironed out to prevent a reoccurance.

There is nothing more to it than that. Really, nothing more. There is no merit in finger pointing at individuals or any further analysis. That's about as much as we will ever know or will ever need to. Let's move on.

 

[Brogan]

Oh, my mistake.

I thought this was the McLaren thread.

 

[Fenderman]

Maybe this should be in a technical thread but as we are discussing McLaren's response to problems with their MES supplied ECU we aren't too far off. Assuming a mod will move the posts to somewhere more suitable I will just point out one more pertinent piece of information as there is still some confusion.

Teams are not permitted to send information from pitwall to the cars. Telemetry is of course sent from the car to the pitwall. In order to reset the ECU there are procedures that the driver can enact but if that fails then the ECU has to be rebooted by physically connecting a computer to the unit. That would need to be done in the pit. Hence Webber's woes lasting the whole of his first stint.

 

[Dizzi]

Ruddy good job they're not using my computer to reboot the ECU, Mark would've had a 10 minute pit stop, now that would have made him grumpy.

 

[KekeTheKing]

McLaren can't do anything right. They had maybe one shot to botch a competitors race and they choose the notoriously slow starting Webber. Good grief



Seriously though. There's going to be more glitches with this new unit right?

 

[FB]

Aren't Microsoft involved in this somewhere? Can't understand why this should create problems all their new software usually works without a hitch.

 

[Mephistopheles]

I think this explains a lot, the way I read it is that if it was the ECU itself that failed then Marks car would have simply stopped on track so the reset explanation must be true...

Notice how much more powerful the new units are compared to last years unit...

http://www.mclarenelectronics.com/Systems/CaseStudy/Formula One

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

I was wondering when McLaren would get blamed for an ECU problem. It was asking for trouble to award the contract to one of the teams.

 

[no-FIAt-please]

I think McLaren have done well really. When were these ECUs introduced (2007/8?) and only one failure. Pretty good I think. Just a shame they cocked up and didn't handicap Vettel