Software Glitch Robs Formula 1 World Champ of Season's First Win (theregister.co.uk) 123
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.
Geez, not a "software glitch" (Score:1)
The code thought Vettel would spend 15 seconds in the pits; the Ferrari driver and his team took just 11 seconds.
The code along with everyone else.
That's just one incredibly great pit stop. Kudos to the pit crew would be appropriate, not brickbats for some anonymous developer.
Re:Geez, not a "software glitch" (Score:5, Insightful)
it's not the code it's gaming the rules of the event
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Unfortunately, for most professional sports now a days, where everyone has near the same ability, the winners and looser are the ones who push the rules right to the line. This is quite literal for some sports such as tennis. Where the goal is to get the ball right on the bounds line, forcing the opponent to make a judgement call to return a ball out of bounds, or get a score if it is in bounds.
Re:Geez, not a "software glitch" (Score:5, Funny)
Video of the pit stop:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Spot on. I hope this was more intentional than not. If the pit boss read the rules, took the time to understand the entire dynamics, saw the advantage, and exploited it... give them a bonus. Because the rest of the lot failed their drivers to pull them in to do the same thing.
You obviously didn't watch the race, and don't know much about the sport. Hamilton had already pitted when the VSC occurred, so it wasn't an option to pit him under the VSC, he was already on the set of tyres he was going to run to the
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Funny - I'm nearly the opposite... I don't discriminate against any sport: I like them all for the same reason (they're all sports!).
Even with some kids playing tag... I would be yelling and routing for the underdog :-)
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If you see no difference between children playing at park and F1, then, well, yeah, have fun doing that.
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He couldn't actually go faster under the safety car, he could have gone faster *before* the safety car to make the gap large enough to cover Vettel's stop, but he didn't because he believed he was already far enough ahead to cover him, so he choose to conserve his tyres and engine instead.
Re: Geez, not a "software glitch" (Score:2)
It clearly is a glitch in the sense the software didnâ(TM)t do what it was supposed to do.
The software was supposed to predict the worst case scenario (eg Hamilton being stuck at virtual safety car speeds and competitors doing optimal pit stops) and tell them the track position they needed to be safe, g
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The typical stop time (ie the time in a pit stop that could theoretically be done faster) is about 2 to 3 seconds. There isnâ(TM)t 4 seconds to make up by doing a âoegreat pit stopâ.
The stop time is not relevant. It's the time from pit-in to pit-out. Under green flag conditions this would be termed 'the delta time' - the total time you lose from a pit stop. But the pit lane speed limit is unaffected by the virtual safety car. So the time in the pit lane remains the same, but the circulating traffic is moving slower due to the VSC.
Re: Geez, not a "software glitch" (Score:2)
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that just makes it an e-sport, only with car crashes.
can we move to vr with no safety car? and fireball (Score:3)
can we move to vr with no safety car? and fireballs when the cars crash?
Re:Geez, not a "software glitch" (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Not so much of a glitch... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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I was expecting an article on Haas double botched tyre change, that made the VSC and the actual safety car enter in action.
Re:Not so much of a glitch... (Score:4, Insightful)
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The second one is in the case of rain, where tyre have to be changed too.
By the way a lot of teams changed tyres during the safety car period, and this always happens in F1 races.
VSC isn't a new thing, was seldom us
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If they're driving under safety one imagines that they aren't driving at a speed such that tires are degrading to any meaningful degree.
They should / could easily add a time penalty for pitting during safety to reflect what would occur if someone were to pit outside of a safety.
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You pretty much have to allow them, as drivers will quite often delay coming into the pits until they're not sure they have enough gas for the next lap. Avoiding even one extra fueling stop over the course of race can gain you a LOT of positions. Deny access to the pits while a safety car is in place would mean a badly timed accident could cause a lot of uninvolved cars to drop out of the race.
That said, while a safety car is in place it seems only reasonable that they shouldn't be allowed to leave the p
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F1 doesn't have refuelling, which is one of the reasons I find them far more impressive than Indy Car on road courses, for example.
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You are arguing for the VSC to be perfect, but this is unrealistic. It's a matter of fact that it can disrupt strategies and you cannot push too hard for perfection. As example, laps under VSC might allow a car with high tire consumption to spare an additional pit stop, giving them a huge advantage compared to those who maybe decided to sacrifice performance betting in doing a stop less than the competitors.
The current regulation allows entering the pit lane only to change tires and you have to meet minimum
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There must be some known position or time loss that pitting causes, so extrapolate it and apply that as a penalty if the driver pits while under a safety flag.
But you can't make up that rule during a race.
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It seems questionable to even allow pitstops while in that state - one would think even if you can pas someone using the pits then you'd still be gaining an unfair advantage by pitting while everyone is forced to drive slowly.
Perhaps just slowing down pit road speeds to exactly match the transit time of the track? Include a "full stop" requirement unless the trip though the pits was unavoidable due to a racing event or track obstruction.
That way, passing though the pits would cost you time if choose to take pit road, and would still make it a benefit over stopping under race conditions. If the pit road trip is unavoidable for safety reasons, it's a wash because you don't have to stop.
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Perhaps just slowing down pit road speeds to exactly match the transit time of the track? Include a "full stop" requirement unless the trip though the pits was unavoidable due to a racing event or track obstruction.
During VSC a car can enter the pit lane only to change tires. The pit lane has already a very slow speed limit, which makes taking the pit lane always a huge time sink compared to the track transit time, even with the (V)SC deployed.
Making a car drive through without stopping is actually a form of penalty for misconduct, since it makes the car lose many seconds.
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It's not a flaw in the rules: the VSC regulation explicitly allows entering the pit lane to change tires as long as the car meets the minimum lap time at the time of entry.
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Well it is an efficient pit crew, but *also* the fact that you can pass if you go through pit.
Re: Not so much of a glitch... (Score:2)
The advantage here was that Hamilton was driving slow enough under VSC that Vettel could complete his pit sequence without Hamilton overtaking him.
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which is by design and a known fact. the issue was that Merc calculator didn't take that into account otherwise hamilton would have paced himself to counter that. ;)
the real tragedy is the HAAS debacle... they are ferrari powered
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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.
When he pitted, Vettel was not in second place, but in first place because he hadn't stopped yet. By pitting under VSC, he just lost less time than Hamilton who had stopped a few laps before. Gaining time during a pit stop during a VSC period, or e
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Finally. Half way down the comments before somebody gets it right.
Vettel was already in the lead at the time he made his pit stop. Nobody overtook anybody.
Hamilton pitted before Vettel which put Vettel in the lead. Ordinarily, Hamilton would have got the lead back when Vettel pitted, but because he couldn't travel at maximum speeds thanks to the VSC, he was not past the pit lane when Vettel exited.
and... (Score:5, Insightful)
... this is why I'm not watching F1 anymore.
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I'll tune in when they start allowing autonomous race cars.
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I'll tune in when they start allowing autonomous race cars.
It's been more about the car than the driver for 25 years already. Once it's autonomous it will be even more predictable.
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The car has always been the critical factor, ever since F1 started in the 50's. Hell, even in the predecessor, the Grand Prix racing of the 20's and 30's, the car was the critical factor.
That still does not diminish the fact that a superb driver will utterly wipe the floor with a merely good driver, in the same car(unless you're NASCAR or Indy Car, where you have rules to fuck over drivers who are too good, or allow teams to use one driver to ram a competitor out of the race, so another driver for the team
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The car has always been the critical factor, ever since F1 started in the 50's. Hell, even in the predecessor, the Grand Prix racing of the 20's and 30's, the car was the critical factor.
That still does not diminish the fact that a superb driver will utterly wipe the floor with a merely good driver, in the same car
If by "wipe the floor with" you mean do 2 tenths of a second a lap faster... I would agree. A lot of teams certainly prioritize getting the cars set up in favour of the preferred driver which results in most of the difference between drivers these days. All the drivers are really good nowadays though. It's not like the Fangio days where you could be an aging chain-cigarette smoking chubby and still win championships.
Senna was legendary in the 80's but in all-realities, the competition is so tight these d
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In some cases, it can be as much as 0.5 to 0.7 seconds difference, which is huge at elite level. But even between the teams, the driver skill makes a big difference: Vettel had this to say about Hamilton's qualifying lap: http://www.espn.co.uk/f1/story... [espn.co.uk]
And, point in case, Vettel vs Hamilton. Last year proved, beyond a doubt, that Hamilton has better emotional control, and FAR better situational awareness for wheel to wheel racing. Vettel has shown multiple times in his racing career that he's unable to co
Ditto (Score:3)
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
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No, motorsport was always about the racing. The nonsense about "it's about the spectacle" is bullshit that's been driven by the entertainment media. If you can't enjoy racing because there's less noise, you weren't there to enjoy the motorsport to begin with, you were only there for a circus... And for that, there's the motorized one-ring circuses, I mean, NASCAR and Indy Car. Or they can just watch a Hollywood movie.
"Frankly no one would miss it - racing enthusiasts have moved on."
The RACING enthusiasts st
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There barely is any racing in F1 - 95% of the time its a procession. Without any spectacle its nothing.
And yes, hybrids can accelerate fast, so what? Given a choice out of a Tesla model S or a mustang V8 I know which I'd choose and it isn't the tesla. There's more to cars than just outright power.
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The race was actually good. I don't see your point.
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If *this* is why, does that mean you're intending to stop watching? Or have you stopped watching replays ahead of the first F1 race since *this*?
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part of it, I watched F1 from end 70s to early 00s, it's not the same now :-( Senna, Prost, were the drivers.
I know they're going for safety but... (Score:3)
...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.
Re:I know they're going for safety but... (Score:5, Informative)
The basic problem with F1 is that it's too expensive to be competitive. Back in the 70s garage teams could win, but now even the guys just there to make up the numbers and provide a full grid are very well funded.
It's at the point now where the only way to win is to spend vast amounts on the latest technology. Only a few teams can afford to do it, and they all demand rule changes to make the technology more applicable to road cars so they can justify the expense. And of course, the rule changes favour the well funded teams while making it harder just for the poorer ones to stay legal.
This is also why it's so boring. Every year, one team gets a big technological advantage and dominates. There is little competition, except between their own two drivers. The other teams can't catch up because mid-season improvements to the car are very limited, to keep costs down and allow poorer teams to be a little a little bit competitive.
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The basic problem with F1 is that it's too expensive to be competitive. Back in the 70s garage teams could win, but now even the guys just there to make up the numbers and provide a full grid are very well funded.
It's at the point now where the only way to win is to spend vast amounts on the latest technology. Only a few teams can afford to do it, and they all demand rule changes to make the technology more applicable to road cars so they can justify the expense. And of course, the rule changes favour the well funded teams while making it harder just for the poorer ones to stay legal.
This is also why it's so boring. Every year, one team gets a big technological advantage and dominates. There is little competition, except between their own two drivers. The other teams can't catch up because mid-season improvements to the car are very limited, to keep costs down and allow poorer teams to be a little a little bit competitive.
I'd say the problem is more the strict rules than the money, although the two go hand in hand. In the old days you could innovate and do something radical and sometimes it would pay off. Nowadays as soon as someone does that they ban it to make all cars look the same.
Occasionally you get a team without money doing well. Remember Brawn?
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Occasionally you get a team without money doing well. Remember Brawn?
Do you mean the team the was formerly Honda and is now Mercedes?
A team that was in existence for a single season.
Just long enough for Jenson Button to prove that with the right equipment he could win races and a championship?
With Button as the primary and Rubens Barrichello as the second driver they proved to be one very good team.
The TEAM wrapped up the constructors championship the same weekend in Brazil as Jenson did, before the final race of the season.
A race team so good Mercedes bought a majority stak
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Better start following the 24 Hours of Lemons [24hoursoflemons.com] endurance race.
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This is also why it's so boring. Every year, one team gets a big technological advantage and dominates. There is little competition, except between their own two drivers.
You must have missed last year when Hamilton (Mercedes) and Vettel (Ferrari) had a great competition down to the last few races. This year looks like it is going to be the same.
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I long for the days where you could buy a race-prepped Ferrari from the factory, drive it to Monte Carlo and enter the Monaco GP, and have a not unreasonable chance of winning it.
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F1 is the ultimate definition of diminishing returns. Personally, I think Formula Vee races, based on the ancient VW Beetle chassis, are just as entertaining and way more fun.
There's a reason why spec races are picking up in popularity (where all the cars are built by the same vendor and are identical), and I hope that trend continues. It more strongly emphasizes the efforts of the real, live team members who do the racing, rather than a pack of powerful companies with deep pockets.
Not a glitch, just a bad assumption (Score:3, Insightful)
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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There is no fueling done in F1 pit stops.
Re: Not a glitch, just a bad assumption (Score:1)
Itâ(TM)s change all tires or non at all in F1. Mixing tire sets even on identical compounds are against regulations.
On side note: some old time F1 will be posting about bringing back v10s or v12. But that time has passed. No car manufacturer will participate and put money on R&D for technology thatâ(TM)s no longer relevant in the market.
Re:Not a glitch, just a bad assumption (Score:4, Informative)
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There is no refueling in F1, they start with all the fuel they get. 2-3 seconds is a normal stop to change four tires. Because they have to slow down in the pit lane (I believe the speed limit is 60 mph), however, they lose much more than that on a stop. Often upwards of 20 seconds. Both the numbers in the article seem low, but I agree with other posters - if the point of the VSC is to freeze the race positions, it should apply to the pit lane also.
there should be an referee or judge can that can o (Score:2)
there should be an referee or judge can that can over rule stuff like this. Even nascar has video review for Yellow flags on the scoring loops
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I think if an overtake by pitstop during the safety car is mandate could have unwanted conequence, like all cars going to the pit lane.
I can understand whu Mercedes is upset: the give a nice car to be used as a real safety car and they used inst
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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.
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The delta times were added to remove a lot of hazy judgement errors on the part of drivers, to improve safety both for drivers and the marshals who might be out on track clearing debris, removing cars etc. Drivers, especially the junior ones, tend to overestimate their abilities, as well as those of their car, especially in bad weather, and that can lead to some nasty accidents.
One accident in particular was Jules Bianchi, who was speeding rather heavily under a double yellow condition(slow down and be prep
Seen more outrage about this... (Score:2, Insightful)
I have seen and heard more people outraged about this than when the autonomous Uber car killed a pedestrian. In fact, some people suggested that it is acceptable for some people to die for the greater good of a future with autonomous vehicles.
That being said, with people's lives and livelihood ever more dependent on software, when are the so-called software engineers going to step up to the Professional Engineer level (like REAL engineering disciplines do), stand behind their software, and accept legal res
Professional Engineer for an game rule set? (Score:2)
Professional Engineer for an game rule set? Yes stuff like autonomous cars need it. But this seems more like the rules picked had loops holes in them that other players can use to get an boost.
Myopic! (Score:2)
Way to miss the point!
No, not just for game rule sets, but software products in general. The bar is VERY low.
Personally, I couldn't care more about enforcing rules for F1, NFL, NBA, FIFA, or any other organizations playing games.
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...when are the so-called software engineers going to step up to the Professional Engineer level (like REAL engineering disciplines do), stand behind their software, and accept legal responsibility when it goes wrong?
Good question.
Civil engineering: has been around for thousands of years. Ever since humans started living in larger civils.
Software engineering: has been around a hundred years, give or take.
So, for round numbers, let's say 5000 years ago for large civil projects (or, more likely, military engineering). The first instance that I know of where the engineer lost his head when his bridge fell down was some poor Persian guy maybe around 500BC.
So the upper limit for the answer to the question is: within 2400 yea
and....this is why... (Score:3)
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.
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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.
To be fair, Vettel and Hamilton are both four time World Champions, and they both play by the same rules. Skill is most important, but far from the only thing that matters. At that level more often than not it is indeed the little things that decide a race.
Go Glitch Go! (Score:1)
From the headline I half expected the article to show a picture of Vanellope holding an F1 trophy.
They didn't upgrade to Lewis 1.2 (Score:4, Informative)
Come on , the guy is a robot, he has less personality than a boiled potato.
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i will raise you a kimmie
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i will raise you a kimmie
Fold.
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Fashion, tats and bling are for people who have no personality and have to try and make themselves interesting through looks.
It's F1 (Score:3)
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.
This is new? (Score:2)
So, how is this different from a yellow caution flag?
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Summary is wrong (Score:2)
Kimi Raikkonen was ahead of Hamilton when the VSC came out, Kimi had not pit yet, which was part of Ferrari's strategy. With all the cars going slow Kimi could pit and Lewis was not close enough to get by him before Kimi was out of the pits. The software glitch calculated the gap Lewis needed to maintain to be ahead if Kimi if a VSC came out and Kimi went to the pits. Lewis could have pushed harder to shorten the gap but he thought he didn't need to so he was saving his tires.
Why 2 safety car periods for one incident? (Score:2)
TV (on Channel 4 UK at least) and subsequent (UK) press coverage didn't seem to pick up what was arguably a mistake by race control. When a car stops/crashes, race control must decide if it's a dangerous position (this one was - it was on the track!) and if it can be moved quickly (this one couldn't - there was no easy way for marshals to push it through a gap in the circuit barriers - they ended up having to bring a truck with a recovery arm on it onto the track to drag it off).
Race control should have kn
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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.
Sigh (Score:2)
God, I hate modern Formula One.
It's no longer a race. It's a bore-fest. All the cars are so heavily regulated, there's nothing to differentiate them. All the timings are so tiny that there's no fun... winning by one-thousandth of a second is boring, lads, unless quite literally it was a head-to-head photo-finish with no other competitors near, and a rare exception.
"Rules on overtaking".. in a race? Beyond "don't kill people", what's the point of that?
Then all that safety-lap nonsense. Just stop the rac
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"winning by one-thousandth of a second is boring, lads, unless quite literally it was a head-to-head photo-finish with no other competitors near, and a rare exception."
Not sure how you can win an F1 race by a thousandth of a second without a competitor a thousandth of a second behind.
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winning by one-thousandth of a second is boring,
This doesn't happen in the race. In qualifying yes.
safety-lap nonsense
Safety car was used for decades, and not only in F1 but in most other motorsports.
"Rules on overtaking".. in a race? Beyond "don't kill people", what's the point of that?
Actually, we talk about the rules specifically when accidents happen. When two cars go into a tight corner, and there is no room for both of them to fit, somebody has got to give up the position, or they crash. That's why
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That's hundredths, but the OP actually said that winning by thousandths was *boring*, which I can't quite understand. Winning by 30s is boring, thousandths would be brilliant!
The problem was not during the VSC, but before (Score:1)
The actual problem from a race strategy perspective was not during the VSC, but before. Hamilton could have been going faster during the race before the VSC, but since Mercedes software said he needed a 15 second gap in case of a VSC, he did not need to get closer to Vettel since Vettel was required to do a pitstop as per the requirement for 2 different tire types in a race (and the fact that he had not made any pitstops yet). Obviously this was not the case and he probably needed to be 10 second (or less)
No different (Score:2)
Than a team having the car fall off the jacks, or a wheel lug not coming off. The people who write the software are every bit as part of the team, and being prone to making a mistake, as any tire changer or refueler.