McLaren's Goss reveals 'quirky' Singapore problem

McLaren technical director Tim Goss has revealed "a quirky little technical problem" which affects cars during the Singapore Grand Prix.

The race takes place at night on the Marina Bay circuit around the streets of Singapore, with the whole track floodlit. Looking ahead to the race weekend, Goss says there is one unusual problem which only occurs in Singapore but can damage the cars if the right precautions are not put in place.

“Singapore has a quirky little technical problem that’s specific to the Marina Bay Street Circuit," Goss said. "Near the Anderson Bridge the cars pass over something underground – we’ve never ascertained what it is – that creates electrical interference on the cars. Sensors start showing some strange readings and the actuators that control the throttle position and the clutch start moving and are no longer under the control of the driver.

“It lasts for a very short period of time, but the worrying thing is that if we get that little burst of electrical interference just as the car is making a gear change, it can upset the delicate timing of the throttle, the clutch and the gear change barrel. It can actually upset the shift and cause a gear to break.

“The first time we went to Singapore it was quite a serious problem because we’d never experienced it before, but we now know what countermeasures to take, such as electrical shielding on the car and a few other software changes.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.

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