My biggest mistake as an F1 engineer • Hacker News Board

Re: My biggest mistake as an F1 engineer

#51

Post by groby_b » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 4:07 PM UTC

fredley wrote: post #10

I'd be interested if anyone has any anecdotes that compare from software engineering. Sending a car out with suspension thingamies still attached seems like the equivalent of pushing a build to production with `DEBUG = True`, and I'm not sure much useful can be learned by you in that situation.

We occasionally ship a build with the equivalent of 'DEBUG=true' to (parts of) production. Deliberately. For an extremely short time period.

What that gains us is a run with real data and a build that's instrumented with assertions - which flushes out a lot of previously unknown issues.

So yes, you learn useful things. If you ever did it accidentally, the useful thing you learn is that shipping ideally is not an on/off switch, but a carefully monitored process :)

Re: My biggest mistake as an F1 engineer

#52

Post by throwaway-sorry » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 4:13 PM UTC

coldcode wrote: post #36

Or you can do what we do at BiglyCorp, have an absolute shitshow release where 250,000 customers crashed. Then act as if nothing happened and go along doing the same things that caused the shitshow. If you don't learn from mistakes, you've optimized for mistakes.

Could be worse. I still wake up sweating thinking about a former job where several million identities were stolen. Tech staff tried to prevent it, even predicting high risk of mistake, but management pushed through it anyway.

A business mess is one thing, but losing somebody's identity is another level of feeling shitty.

Re: My biggest mistake as an F1 engineer

#53

Post by angus-prune » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 4:17 PM UTC

TallGuyShort wrote: post #33

pmontra wrote: post #24

> before the race weekend, all our simulations, which had been firmly plotted around a more conventional qualifying strategy, had told us we were likely to finish third. That was 2006. Do anybody have information about to the software racing teams use to simulate race strategies and how many GPs they test? Thanks.

Big Monte Carlo simulations, and I'd expect them to test every GP. Based on where they qualify they have pre-computed decisions about when to pit / change tire types, etc. under various conditions, like a safety car on lap 10, etc. See: http://www.canopysimulations.com/ . Not sure how many of the teams use that specific software, but the computing side of F1 is actually a big deal: the rules place not only place limi…

I didn't know that there were mandated limits on processing power. Do you have any more info on this?

What processing are there limits on? Is it just the wind tunnel equivalence (Were there limits on wind tunnel time back in the day?)? Is it just pre-manufacturing simulations or do they limit the sort race simulations that we're talking about here?

Re: My biggest mistake as an F1 engineer

#54

Post by TallGuyShort » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 4:25 PM UTC

angus-prune wrote: post #53

TallGuyShort wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big Monte Carlo simulations, and I'd expect them to test every GP. Based on where they qualify they have pre-computed decisions about when to pit / change tire types, etc. under various conditions, like a safety car on lap 10, etc. See: http://www.canopysimulations.com/ . Not sure how many of the teams use that specific software, but the computing side of F1 is actually a big deal: the rules place not only place limi…

I didn't know that there were mandated limits on processing power. Do you have any more info on this? What processing are there limits on? Is it just the wind tunnel equivalence (Were there limits on wind tunnel time back in the day?)? Is it just pre-manufacturing simulations or do they limit the sort race simulations that we're talking about here?

The limit for the last couple of years has been 25 Teraflops at 64-bit precision. They have to approve and monitor the specific computing resources as well, and the mandatory shutdown periods during the year apply to said resources. This applies to computational fluid dynamics simulations - I have not heard of restrictions on strategy simulations. See appendix 8 in the sporting regulations: http://www.fia.com/regulation/category/110.

Re: My biggest mistake as an F1 engineer

#55

Post by walshemj » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 4:40 PM UTC

Interesting the local f1 team RBR (red bull) a couple of years ago had two DNF's from not correctly managing the fuel load.

I did do a spec job application always wondered if I would have pointed out that as a mistake that I would have not made more than once :-) BTW my first job was at the worlds leading rnd organisations in fluid dynamics which is also nearby on campus at cranfield

Re: My biggest mistake as an F1 engineer

#56

Post by fredley » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 4:42 PM UTC

groby_b wrote: post #51

fredley wrote: post #10

I'd be interested if anyone has any anecdotes that compare from software engineering. Sending a car out with suspension thingamies still attached seems like the equivalent of pushing a build to production with `DEBUG = True`, and I'm not sure much useful can be learned by you in that situation.

We occasionally ship a build with the equivalent of 'DEBUG=true' to (parts of) production. Deliberately. For an extremely short time period. What that gains us is a run with real data and a build that's instrumented with assertions - which flushes out a lot of previously unknown issues. So yes, you learn useful things. If you ever did it accidentally, the useful thing you learn is that shipping ideally is not an on/o…

That's fascinating. Is there any reason to do this in production vs. a staging environment (assuming you've got one prod-like enough with replayed traffic)? It seems a little risky to me!

Re: My biggest mistake as an F1 engineer

#57

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 5:02 PM UTC

fredley wrote: post #12

Mithaldu wrote: post #9

Short version: He didn't fuel Raikkonen's car up enough which forced an early pit stop in the second-to-last lap of the race. However at the end of the race they placed the same as they had planned, and they had for the laps before the pit stop the advantage of having a stress-free race due to being in pole position. And the lesson he learned from that: Don't stick to the rules too closely, but also try to see if bre…

The lesson wasn't "Don't stick to the rules", it was "Capitalise on your mistakes". He didn't plan to underfuel the car, but when he did there were lessons to be learned.

[deleted]

Re: My biggest mistake as an F1 engineer

#58

Post by rurban » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 5:13 PM UTC

pmontra wrote: post #24

> before the race weekend, all our simulations, which had been firmly plotted around a more conventional qualifying strategy, had told us we were likely to finish third. That was 2006. Do anybody have information about to the software racing teams use to simulate race strategies and how many GPs they test? Thanks.

We were not allowed to tell anyone. You have to ask the teams directly, but they also won't reveal their secrets. I would have so many interesting F1 stories...

Re: My biggest mistake as an F1 engineer

#59

Post by BusinessInsider » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 7:57 PM UTC

Can someone explain this to me? I'm only familiar with the current regulations and so the logic of this paragraph doesn't make sense to me:

> Back in 2006, the regulations required teams to qualify their cars with race fuel-loads. The trade-offs were obvious – load the car up with fuel and you’d end up further down the grid, but with the benefit and flexibility of adjusting your strategy in the race. By contrast, qualify on petrol fumes and you had a good chance to be quick on Saturday, but you’d theoretically start the race with one hand tied behind your back.

Re: My biggest mistake as an F1 engineer

#60

Post by ThrustVectoring » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 8:15 PM UTC

BusinessInsider wrote: post #59

Can someone explain this to me? I'm only familiar with the current regulations and so the logic of this paragraph doesn't make sense to me: > Back in 2006, the regulations required teams to qualify their cars with race fuel-loads. The trade-offs were obvious – load the car up with fuel and you’d end up further down the grid, but with the benefit and flexibility of adjusting your strategy in the race. By contrast, qua…

There's a tradeoff to be made with amount of fuel loaded into the car. If you put more fuel in the car, it weighs more, and so will corner and accelerate worse and have worse lap times. On the other hand, it'll have more fuel, so it won't need to make a pit stop as soon.

Qualifying laps are structured differently from the actual race itself, in a way that incentivizes putting less fuel in the car. Essentially, only the qualifying lap times matter, and not the advantages from having more fuel loaded. The obvious strategy is to put the bare minimum in the tank for qualifying, and more during the start of the actual race.

The new regulations forbid that strategy - you're allowed no more fuel to start the race than you had used to start the qualifying laps.