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Comment by kevmo314 | Hacker News Reader

I'm surprised that there isn't more software automation. For example, the bolts align faster with better engineering but the pit lane gate at the end of the video is manually controlled. There seems to be a lot of mechanical cleverness, but not much software automation.

Is this because it's part of the sport/culture or maybe there isn't much to gain from software automation?

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I think some nuances are missing from the video. Some teams use a system to detect torque on the wheel gun[0]. When it reaches a certain level, it means the wheel is attached securely. If this happens with all the wheels, then the pit stop is complete and green light can be shown to the driver.

Needless to say, I have witnessed "sensor errors" botch up a perfectly fine pit stop.

0: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.fia-to-present-pi...

A lot of this is driven by the technical regulations, in order to keep some parity between teams with varying budgets. Most, if not all teams have as much software automation on the pitstop equipment (you can see the front jack release triggers the green light in the video!)

> you can see the front jack release triggers the green light in the video!

Actually, the amazing thing is that it's manually activated.

The video explains that there is one person in charge of making sure that everyone has finished and there were no problems, which then activates the green light.

In addition, there's a second person watching the lane, to check that no cars are incoming. This one even overrides the first switch if necessary.

Because watching flawlessly automated pit stops and cars with autopilot race is not very exciting.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, Formula 1 was also supposed to deliver cutting edge tech into mass-produced cars, besides just being a racing event. I think that (semi-)automated gas/charging stations would have been great to have, from both safety and convenience perspectives.

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