
Honda system confused by Alonso taking Pouhon flat - DC-3
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/alonso-qualifying-spa-honda-mclaren-945396/
======
pmontra
For the uninformed, Formula 1 has been running on supercharged 1600 cc V6
engines since 2014, with 100 kg of gasoline for the whole GP (300 km), 105 kg
this year if I remember correctly (because of larger and heavier tires.) That
wouldn't give enough power so there are energy recovery systems from the
exhaust and brakes. They get close to 1000 HP when all those power system
deploy all the power they can generate.

The driver has still only the accelerator and the brakes pedals to control
power so it's critical that the car knows when to recover energy (either when
braking or when coasting) and when to go full throttle or deploy partial
power, and which percentage. That's where Honda has failed.

~~~
seabrookmx
Correction: they're turbocharged not supercharged. For those that don't know
the difference, a turbocharger is two turbines connected to eachother. One,
powered by exhaust gases, spins the other, which forces air into the
combustion chamber (the pressure applied is typically called "boost"). More
air means more fuel can be injected while maintaining stoichiometric
equilibrium. More fuel combusted means more power is produced, given equal
waste due to friction etc.

A supercharger is very similar, but conceptually more simple. The turbine
creating boost is instead connected mechanically to the engine's crankshaft,
being driven directly by the engine.

~~~
pietjepuk88
To be fair, the turbochargers in contemporary F1 cars are not powered only by
exhaust gases. To get rid of the infamous turbo lag, they are electrically
assisted. Still not a super charger of course, but the "assisted" part makes
them a bit more similar.

~~~
lostlogin
The poor mans equivalent of this is hooking up a decent computer fan to the
battery on a scooter. Force feeding the intake on the poor little thing
certainly felt like it doubled the power, but double almost nothing still
isn't much. Turboing the lawn mower works great too, but I'm less sure you
would want that done.

~~~
LeonM
That is not supercharging. A computer fan is not designed for compressing air,
and it's nowhere near powerful enough to do so. There may be a small increase
in performance, but that is just because you overcome the restrictions
(increasing airflow) in the inlet manifold

The so called 'electric superchargers' which you can buy on ebay have been
mythbusted many times [0]

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbGWgvJN1_8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbGWgvJN1_8)

~~~
IgorPartola
I think I rememeber seeing someone hooking up a highly modified leaf blower to
the intake of a car and getting like a dozen more HP. This was a part of a
bunch of experiments with the electrics turbos, and the the leaf blower was
the only thing that worked?

~~~
damnfine
Yup, it takes not only high pressure, but a high volume of air. Add to that
the need to squeeze more air through existing small ducting, and you need
quite a bit to make a difference. Turbos work by their intake being powered in
close relation to their exhaust volume. The rest is just effeciency curves and
fueling issues.

------
aidos
OT Some years back I was given a tour around the McLaren workshop. The work
that goes into those machines is impressive to say the least.

I knew a guy on the electrical testing team and he said that they had just
spent the better part of 2 weeks tracking down a single misfire from a race.
Turned out two tracks on a PCB were slightly too close together.

~~~
jacquesm
How on earth did they manage to locate that fault? That would be an awesome
story to be told in detail.

~~~
myrandomcomment
The amount of sensors they have on the cars is insane. Each race they
basically set up a data center in the paddock. Then that is remote linked to
the teams HQ DC over MPLS links.

Here is a quick bit about it.

[http://en.f1i.com/magazine/73067-f1-telemetry-data-
race.html](http://en.f1i.com/magazine/73067-f1-telemetry-data-race.html)

~~~
hordeallergy
I've tried suggesting to smaller teams on social media that they make their
data public. What do they have to lose? No responses.

------
myrandomcomment
Both my wife and I are F1 fans and make a point to watch the races together
(which is cool!). While McLaren has no hope of winning watching them fail over
and over this and last year due to Honda is heartbreaking.

The quality and design of each teams car matters a ton for winning. The drives
of course are a huge part of it, however I strongly believe that you put Max
Verstappen
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Verstappen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Verstappen))
in the same Mercedes that Lewis Hamilton is driving he would be likely to win.

For those that do not know there are 2 titles here - the drivers title and the
team title. The team title is the "Constructors Championship" i.e., they built
the car.

~~~
spear
And yet, in the Drivers Championship standings, Max is well behind his
teammate Daniel Ricciardo (who is of course, driving the same car).

~~~
myrandomcomment
I believe if you look at the races and why this is you will find Max had more
then one race where the car failed or was crashed out this year.

~~~
suprfnk
If you count today's race, his car stopped working 6 out of 12 races this year
[1] -- through no (obvious) fault of his own. They were mostly engine-related
failures.

This is the prime reason for his bad point total.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Formula_One_season#33](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Formula_One_season#33)

------
laurencei
The reliance on "major throttle" to determine track position seems strange,
especially when you consider unknown variables are possible.

For example, if a marshall flags a yellow, you might pull off the throttle at
an unexpected location.

Same as when racing - if another car breaks (for whatever reason, including
crashing) - your "inputs" are going to be very different, so this could easily
trick the computer into thinking it is not in the right position?

~~~
colordrops
Yeah, are inertial navigation sensors and GPS units disallowed?

~~~
CydeWeys
It seems like they must be, as that'd be the obvious solution. I wonder what
the motivation for that rule is, and how soon it'll change.

~~~
hordeallergy
What are they using to show the track location graphics? I just assumed they
must be using GPS.

~~~
CydeWeys
Could be equipment that the teams don't have access to the data from.

------
cyberferret
Seems almost comical when you analyse it like this. But in all seriousness,
this should have been a major consideration when designing the software
systems for the 2017 regulation cars.

The new design with wider tyres and improved downforce means that drivers can
now take previously 'brass ball' Spa corners like Eau Rouge and Pouhon with
the pedal to the floor, compared to the old days. That very fact should have
been allowed for in the AI algorithms.

You'll have to excuse me, I just woke up here on the other side of the world
and watched HAM's pole setting lap last night at Spa, and _man_ , these cars
take all those tricky corners at Spa _very_ fast! [0] (For reference, Eau
Rouge is at 0:22, and Pouhon is at 1:01)

[0] -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIRYrgVhJYQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIRYrgVhJYQ)

------
logronoide
Even algorithms are impressed with Alonso's performance.

Alonso's balls 1 - Honda algorithms 0

------
tofflos
"Top paid human driver unaware of car limitations."

I don't follow motorsport but it seems like the car in the article is highly
calibrated for each race in order to provide optimal performance through-out
every section of the track. The driver then deviated from the agreed upon, and
successfully tested, driving pattern and the engineering team got the blame.

I mean sure... The car could behave differently - but these are the risks when
you test in production.

~~~
philjohn
I would imagine they tuned the map from simulator runs, McLaren are well known
for having one of the best simulators in F1 for human in the loop, and
computer in the loop, testing.

It could be that the parameters were slightly off for downforce and grip with
their low-downforce Spa and Monza package and Alonso (and the computer)
couldn't take Pouhon flat.

------
Bromskloss
> Honda's deployment algorithm is calculated through major throttle input,
> with it basing its calculations of which corner it is at by major throttle
> inputs.

What does "major throttle" mean?

~~~
DC-3
Presumably large changes in throttle input (such as lifting off considerably
as the mapping expected Alonso to do through the Pouhon corner) - as opposed
to small variations in input which the driver would use to keep the car stable
and under traction.

~~~
avh02
Any ideas if there's some regulation stopping more accurate methods of
figuring out where they are on the track than through such a strange system?
It would not be my go-to method of navigating a track.

~~~
njharman
What would be better? GPS is inaccurate and probably has issues with the speed
they are going, they'd have to some estimate of actual position based on
average velocity. I think they want to know the instant they are out of turn.

Sensor in the vehicle is way more responsive and reliable than anything remote
(EM emission based).

~~~
avh02
I get that, but even mid-2000s consumer cars have position sensors on the
steering wheel and very accurate rotation sensors on each individual wheel
(mainly for stability control), I'm sure some combination of this would allow
them to build a fairly accurate dead reckoning system... Definitely better
than stomp based navigation I'd hope

------
jordansmithnz
Perhaps I’m way off (I haven’t had a lot of experience with machine learning),
but mapping this sort of thing seems like something a neural network could
learn to do extremely well. There may be hardware limitations or reasons to
why this can’t be done, but in general optimising an engine’s performance
looks like a problem with very measureable inputs and outputs, which would
seem to lend well to a machine learning problem.

From a naive perspective, if engine manufacturers aren’t already investigating
machine learning to optimise performance, it seems like something worth doing.

~~~
nzjrs
The old machine learning for everything answer!

ML people need to learn to look into a problem before spouting this sort of
stuff.

~~~
robertlagrant
With enough training data I reckon I could write an AI for forums that filters
out this sort of suggestion.

------
throwaway43894
This seems like a terrible way to do odometry. Does FIA disallow teams from
using the odometry information from the wheels ?

~~~
boyce
Yes. The ECU is extremely limited

------
bitmapbrother
I was wondering why Alonso was shouting "NO POWER NO POWER" over the team
radio at the end of Q2 qualifying.

