The firmware situation is mixed. The ECU hardware is a standard TAG700 from McLaren. Basically these are software-defined ECUs where you can do whatever. However, FIA has some rules on what you're allowed to modify and has some "compulsory" software in there for monitoring and competition regulatory reasons. It appears there was very limited testing of this module in wet conditions which seems to have affected a lot of vehicles. (I work in Motorsports)
You're technically right. I was just speaking industry parlance because everyone still just say McLaren. You'll get blank stares if you say "Motion Applied".
Adding to this summarizing my reading from elsewhere: It sounds as if the cause was going too slowly through a sector, and due to to combination of wet conditions and the specific layout of the sectors at Sepang it was triggered for the first time. Since everyone was driving in formation on the formation lap, multiple drivers triggered it.
Would this be safety-related, something like "going this slowly through a sector indicates a problem, kill the throttle"? Still seems heavy-handed since the cars were moving, if dangerously slowly.
Wow. I just assumed it wouldn’t be firmware because going from making a fix in 50 minutes to having cars flying at hundreds of miles per hour on that firmware is kind of nuts
It's a pretty intense sport & that kind of timeline is fairly common. They'll do a full car rebuild right before the race, if the driver's had a crash in the session before it. So, the driver will be approaching a corner at 250kph+ in the full knowledge that the brakes were wired up to the pedal just ten minutes earlier. They'll make brake-balance adjustments on the fly in the car as they're speeding down the straightaway.
I think the drivers have some extraordinary capability for trust, because the chain of people who need to have got their job correct for that brake pedal to work in that moment is in the dozens, and the consequence for any of them getting it wrong is a particularly violent crash.
There's definitely some trust there, but the drivers have been doing this since they were kids in karts with dad turning the wrenches, through the lower formula series, and into F1.
And the race engineers and mechanics have mostly all done the same, with many of them having studied in college for just these jobs. The UK has quite a few unis and technical schools with motorsports programs for both roles (typically motorsports engineering for the former and certificate programs + apprenticeships for the latter). And they likely started in F3 or elsewhere, then F2, then F1.
Haas runs the "TGR Haas Driver Development Program" to train younger drivers, mechanics, and engineers using historic cars (thanks to the rule change for this season, the 2025 cars qualify). I assume the other teams have analogous programs.
In 2020 Hungarian GP, Red Bull rebuilt the front end of Max's car, /on the grid/, after he crashed out during a recon lap[1]. They had 20 minutes, but but finished comfortably early with 25 seconds to spare. Max finished that race in second position.
[1] it was a wet race so the race start was delayed after the initial recon lap.
There is a 20-minute video that shows Red Bull repairing Max's car on the grid while they wait for the formation lap.
>See how incredible teamwork from the Red Bull Racing mechanics enabled Max Verstappen to recover from a pre-race crash to taking the start of the 2020 Hungarian Grand Prix.
It's a very simple question - is this act statistically likely to improve the results? If the answer is yes, and either it is within the rules, or unlikely to be detected, then it will happen. There are billions on the table, reputations and careers on the line; if you don't pick them up, someone else will.
"But the driver's head might get chopped off". Not sure why you bring that up, it is not part of the equation. Will we likely get more points, will we get caught? Those are the only metrics that matter.
I suppose I exaggerate, but not by much. Drivers didn't want the halo because they thought it would hinder their driving. The first season out Verstappen literally drove over the top of Lewis' helmet, leaving tire marks (he would have been dead w/o the halo).
F1 vehicles have a lot of actively controlled systems - Engine, MGU, Diff, Brake Bias, Aero etc. Their way of allowing active control but preventing "driver aids" like traction control, torque vectoring is to tightly regulate and give them a box where they can place their controls and what inputs they are allowed to use.
Casadi uses either an interpreter or emits c-code, where Copapy directly runs machine code. Would be very interesting to benchmark Copapy against compiled Casadi c-code – looking into it.
I mean they are cheaper initially, but as they gain experience and knowledge they aren’t cheaper than anyone else. The difference is that initial cost saving blocks a lot of people who are already US citizens from developing those skills and knowledge.
One more reason for employers to invest in their local communities now … This comes down to cheap education. The skills can be acquired cheaper abroad. Companies can provide free education now or pay the 100k which is close to the cost of education here.
Yes I mean Trump's entire economic policy agenda domestically is to enact massive corporate taxes for any company that avoids hiring/training Americans to get cheaper labor from abroad. The problem is that the US has basically depended on importing cheap foreign labor from its inception, thats the basic economic model here and the only reason that countries like China or India don't need external immigration is because they already have internal migration. I remember I was taking a taxi in Kochi once and the driver was complaining about all these northern Indian economic migrants displacing local workers because the wages in South India are much higher than in North India. But the US does not have any poor workers or a peasant population. Unfortunately, all those good, cheap workers are going to end up elsewhere now and the west will probably begin to suffer economic slowdown because their workers don't want to get priced out. Eventually all the borders will come down, since they harm competition.
What is the actual intent behind decimating NASA ? It's tiny compared to the defense budget and fairly high ROI in terms of maintaining US scientific leadership.
A RIF, but not a decimation. In 2024, NASA employed just under 18,000 civil servants. Additionally, NASA supports the employment of tens of thousands more through contracts, grants, and partnerships with various organizations, e.g. FFRDC, universities, etc.
Like the New York Jets, NASA did one generationally awesome thing in 1969 and have been riding on the goodwill from that for the last 56 years. Both claim that their failures are due to underfunding and management issues but fans are becoming suspicious.
It's mostly for taste at this point, rather than safety. For a long time I used to drink right from the tap, now use a filter pitcher simply because it tastes better.
Not the person you asked, but the chlorine level is very high in my muni water so I like running it through a Britta charcoal filter. If I'm in a rush, tap is fine.
it's beyond just new a visa, it's also changing tax code.
> Lutnick told the hosts of the All In show, was to allow people to purchase the right to live in the United States and pay taxes only on their income earned in the country.
That's a huge tax policy change. Currently, my understanding is that as a citizen, you pay taxes on all income, regardless of where it comes from. You get credits for taxes paid to other governments, but if they charge less then the US would, you pay the difference.
Being a Trump Card Holder may in the future become even better than being a citizen! How about even more, positive rights such as Judicial Express Review and deport override (at an extra fee, of course). The Platinum category gets permanent access to lawmakers offices.
One of my main complaints about the US is that basically corruption is less democratized, unlike a lot of places where it can be bought for a pittance. Trump bringing the bribery and corruption to the level of the common millionaire would be an invigorating breath of life into more equal opportunities usually reserved for billionares.
Paying $5 million to get a visa and then paying taxes on whatever assets and income they bring with them seems like a great deal for the US because the foreign income never would have been taxed by the US anyway if they hadn't got the visa. Why get greedy and demand taxation on all their income when this could lose us a the opportunity for a very profitable deal?
But is it fair that a foreigner can buy the state and profit of rules different than the country own citizens?
Let's push the concept further, if I'm a rich american citizen, that I leave the country and give up my nationality and then comes back with the trump gold card that I bought to profit of more interesting taxes conditions. Would it be fair?
Rich expats who hold visas and reside in a foreign country but don't pay taxes to that foreign country on their assets held back home is actually a very common thing around the world. This is encouraged because having rich people show up in your country and spend a lot of money is actually quite beneficial.
The outlier here is actually the US law that citizens pay taxes on income from outside the country. We are virtually the only country that does this. So in that sense I will agree with you that the unequal treatment is unfair, but it is the treatment of US citizens that is out of the ordinary, not the treatment of the Trump visa holders.
It's a mixed blessing. The deal is very similar to remittance basis taxation which we had in the UK until recently. It probably benefited the country in the way you say but was also kind of unfair in that foreign billionaires living here got a much better deal than British ones. It was just scrapped and a lot of millionaires are leaving for better or worse.
I'm skeptical that Trump will manage to get the tax changes through the house and senate and that they would remain through the next government which might put people off dropping $5m on the thing.
Also would Musk who has three citizenships be able to drop the US one and get a gold visa?
Like it or not this is basically how the US is run these days. Congress has ceded its power to the executive branch. Almost everything now is done by bureaucratic degree and executive order.
Not disputing long term damage to the talent pool in the US, just making an observation that it won't be solved until the issue affects certain groups.
You just reminded me of the dangerous crossroad in a town in my previous country.
It became dangerous because the regional council allowed a grocery store to be built there but the crossroad wasn't designed for heavy daily traffic. There were many accidents with small to moderate injuries.
As everybody knew it was dangerous, many people asked the mayor to do something.
His off the record answer was that unless a child or a few adults were killed, he wouldn't get the funding to build another crossroad.
I just checked on google maps and it's now a roundabout.
