Image courtesy of McLaren Honda.
The morning of October 4, 2014 was a hectic news day in the F1 paddock. With silly-season already at full tilt, Sebastian Vettel finally pulled the pin on the silly-season grenade by announcing his departure from Red Bull Racing. To add to the intrigue, he did not announce where he was going, just that he was leaving. We had to depend on Christian Horner to assure us Vettel was heading to Ferrari despite the fact that an official announcement would not come until the end of November.
With Vettel’s apparent replacing of Fernando Alonso at Ferrari, news reports were fast and furious as to where Alonso would drive in 2015. With the “Alonso sweepstakes” at critical mass, maybe it’s not surprising that a titanic quote from Ron Dennis went overlooked. Maybe it’s not surprising this quote from Ron Dennis went overlooked considering it didn’t involve his grumbling the word “Alonso” like a scorned supervillain.
On the subject of the Mercedes engine Ron Dennis said, “A modern Grand Prix engine in this moment in time is not just about sheer power, it’s about how you harvest the energy, it’s about how you store the energy, and effectively if you don’t have control of that process – meaning access to source code – then you are not going to be able to stabilise your car in the entry to corners, etc, and you lose lots of lap time.” For the first time I can recall, the term “source code” was used to describe performance in F1, and it was ignored. Again, maybe it was ignored because of the news-storm circling Alonso that seems to come every few seasons, or it was because of Toto Wolff’s response. Wolff said, “I wouldn’t even want to use the terminology ‘source code,’ because it doesn’t make any sense.” That seems to close the case doesn’t it?
It shouldn’t. Either Toto Wolff is incredibly ignorant to software (unlikely), or he bet that most F1 fans aren’t software developers (very likely). Software is a relatively new subject in F1. Sure, traction control and active suspension were software products, but both were banned many seasons ago. Engine mapping was a hot topic in the exhaust-blown diffuser saga, but those hot gases got all the attention and not the software producing them. So what changed?
The engine. With the hybrid V6 turbo engines introduced in 2014 came millions of lines of code of software needed to integrate all the new systems into a single “powerplant”. Yes, there is still an internal combustion engine (ICE) that delivers power to the rear wheels. There are also energy-recovery systems that generate and store electrical power which is also used to drive the rear wheels in conjunction with the ICE. Moreover, the braking of a F1 car is now fully electronic, “brake-by-wire”, as the energy recovery systems also integrate with the braking system. In short, it takes all of these systems (and many more) to create the powerplant which propels a F1 car, and software is the “glue” which bands these systems together.
“Source code” is a term used in software engineering to describe the high-level programming language, such as C, C++, Java, Python, etc., used to develop a software product. Without access to the source code, a software program cannot be altered. Other software products can be introduced to the input/output interface of the software to produce different results, but this approach reduces software efficiency and reliability while introducing latency. In other words, Toto Wolff should know what source code is. If he doesn’t, I hope Mercedes is paying Paddy Lowe well.
In the context of F1, the powerplant software can have monumental impact on lap times as Ron Dennis stated. Without access to the source code for the Mercedes powerplant, McLaren would struggle to integrate the powerplant into their chassis if they chose a different integration philosophy than Mercedes. The source code was optimized for integration into the W05, not the MP4-29. Therefore, McLaren might have had the best engine on the grid at their disposal, but they would not have been able to unlock its full potential as Mercedes did.
With a new sole-supplier relationship with Honda, McLaren will overcome this source code deficiency as McLaren will be able to work in conjunction with Honda to design their powerplant so that it integrates with the McLaren chassis philosophy. This engine-chassis symbiotic relationship is not new to F1. Adrian Newey chose to design the RB3 for a Renault engine, ending their relationship with Ferrari, even though the Ferrari engine was thought to be slightly more powerful at that time. Newey favored the Renault engine because of its cooling characteristics. He felt he could gain more performance from an aerodynamic philosophy designed around the Renault engine even at the cost of a few horsepower. Four championships later, it looks like Newey made the right decision. Today, McLaren face a similar position, dropping their long-time engine partner of Mercedes, who currently produces the most powerful engine on the grid, to renew their relationship with Honda. Time will tell if Honda’s source code is enough to make the difference at McLaren.
