F1: Red Bull Gets Apology From McLaren

Formula 1

F1: Red Bull Gets Apology From McLaren

McLaren now admits it was partly to blame for Red Bull driver Mark Webber's issues in Australia...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted March 20, 2013 Balen (BEL)

Mark Webber lost telemetry on the warm-up lap in Australia and, unable to prepare properly for the start, got away badly. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

McLaren has officially apologized to Red Bull for a software glitch that compromised Mark Webber’s race in Australia.

After being the sole ECU supplier via its FIA contract since 2008, McLaren Electronic Systems has introduced a new unit this season, which will also be used when the turbo era kicks off in 2014.

Following a number of teething issues in testing, McLaren claims that the actual units ran reliably in Melbourne. However, Webber suffered a software issue for which RBR blamed the supplier.

The Aussie lost telemetry on the warm-up lap and, unable to prepare properly for the start, got away badly. He was also without KERS for the first 20 laps of the race.

Afterward, team boss Christian Horner was quick to blame McLaren for the problem.

“We lost all telemetry on the formation lap,” he said. “And then you can’t do the preparation that you need to for the start, so then he’s in the blind for the start, and that ECU issue shut the KERS down as well, so by the time we’d reset the whole system, obviously he’d lost the start and lost early ground. It’s something that they need to get on top of, because there have been a lot of issues during testing.”

Meanwhile, McLaren sent an apology via a media statement, and stressed that the actual ECU wasn’t the problem: “An ECU comprises several thousand parts, tens of thousands of solder connections and hundreds of thousands of lines of software. It is a very complex piece of equipment that controls the powertrain and DRS, and acts as a car's primary data system.

“The electronic units themselves ran without incident in Melbourne, but there was a software-related issue that meant that Mark Webber's Red Bull Racing car's garage data system had to be re-started during the formation lap.

“That disrupted his preparations for the start of the race, for which Mark and the team has our apology. We are working together with them to prevent any recurrence.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 28th season as a racing journalist in 2012. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.