Cory M

So HPD has 45 engineers looking after two engines, but MSR only has a single engineer looking at chassis data and tire pressures, with no oversight or review from other team members? Maybe one guy made the modification to the code in the software, but I'm guessing there were a lot of blind eyes in the pit. I wouldn't expect a team owner to be that engaged with the technical details, but I think the idea that a single "rouge" person on the team was aware is silly.

NaroEscape

I don't know... Matt? How many people are checking your work when you do a new data set up on a TA car?
TBH, my guess is there are very few if any people on the team that would even know what to look at or what they were looking at if it were staring them in the face. And honestly, why would they? Of the thousands of data points that are monitored, we know of this specific thing only because they got caught. How many other things have been 'manipulated' that we'll never know about? From all the teams up and down the paddock....
Every team member is trusted to do their job, there aren't a lot of checks and balances (due to time and resources primarily). Obviously this trust was broken by this engineer.

Look, I'm not saying its not possible that others knew, and they very well could have. But it's also not 'silly' that one guy couldn't do this. I've crewed on a few IMSA teams and know first hand that each member is in charge of their job, nobody is looking over their shoulder...ESPECIALLY the engineers....

MB965

So who on the team fills the tires to set pressure and do they use the TPMS output or a standalone pressure gauge?

ProCoach

Standard, tested gauges. Multiples.

Matt Romanowski

The teams I have been around were no what Peter is suggesting. The main tire guy has a gauge that matches the TPMS. The gauge is used to set the pressure when they tires are put on the car, but they TPMS is trusted after that. That is based on DTM, LMP2, LMP3, older LMP1, and a bunch of other teams. I haven't worked with any Indycar teams, but watching from the outside, that is how they have done it as well.

ProCoach

Umm, yeah. That's what I said.

NaroEscape

To be fair, I hadn't considered the tire pressure fill guy. But to support my argument, it's also unlikely the tire fill guy knows the regulations and just goes by what the engineer tells him to fill them to.
My point is this: there are probably very few people on any given team that know the entire rule book and CERTAINLY the manual labor guys don't. They do what they're told. Remember, almost all of these teams consist of just a few 'full timers' with most crew guys as fly-ins just for races.

ProCoach

Bob, in my experience, at the top level, each crew that is responsible for a specific performance aspect of the car (and ANYONE on the over-the-wall crew) is well-schooled in the rule book that governs their particular area.

The first thing the engineers and the crew responsible for the tires read is the manufacturer and regulatory bulletins regarding minimum tire pressures.

This is not new. The recommendations have been around for a long time, the regulations around for years.

Everyone that touches or monitors those pressures at the top level, racing for the overall win, knows what is required.

I don't buy the "lone rogue engineer" story. Cadillac was penalized twice during Petit LeMans for the same infraction when IMSA picked up low pressures that the team is mandated to provide.

T&T Racing

My conspiracy theory is that the race engineer allegedly inserted a positive offset in the monitoring software and then adjusted the tire electronic pressure gauge with the same offset. Walla, both the gauge and the TPMS read the same value except actual tire pressure is lower ( below minimum) to indicated pressure which is at minimum or greater.
The race engineer is the only crew member reported to have his hard card badge confiscated.

Cory M

If the one autonomous person on the team who knows how to use a computer and calibrate a tire pressure gauge gets hit by a bus on the morning of the race, I guess the team has to pack up and go home.

Veloce Raptor

EXACTLY

38D

seems like the tire guy would notice the gauge reading a negative number when not hooked up and would zero it.

Matt Romanowski

The latest RaceTech magazine reports that they used an offset in the data to show the manipulated pressures.