McNish vs Alonso's gear selector problems.

[chernaudi]

As anyone who watched the Malyasian GP knows, Fernando Alonso DNF'd with only 2 laps to go after the engine in his Ferrari blew apart. I know that he had gear selector problems though out the entire event before that.

I also remember that Allan McNish lost an ALMS race at Mosport in 2007 due to a gear selector problem on his Audi R10. From what I remember, Allan's problem was traced back to a failure of litteraly a $5 electrical part in the gear selector mechanism that allowed him to only select 4th or 5th gear, but nothing lower.

Fernando's problem from what I've heard was the the car had something break in the clutch during a warm up lap or very early in the race, and he had to hold the thottle partly open to match revs to keep the engine from stalling on downshifts. Allan had similar issues-he had to use the clutch pedal and heel-toe the thottle and brakes to get the mechanicals to override the electronics on the R10's paddle shifter until the electronics completely gave up on anything below 4th gear.

I was wondering if there's any similarities between those two scinerios and why Allan finished 2nd at Mosport and Alonso blew the engine in his Ferrari, though timing in the events had something to do with that out come(Alonso had the problem most or all the race, while McNish had his issues at Mosport '07 during the last 15 minutes of the race).

[darcym]

errr they are totally different cars, racing in totally different conditions, with totally different gear / electrical / engine systems on totally different tracks.

It's the same as asking

Why did Michael Schumacher not win todays race, he's won many before, after all he had a car, so why didn't he win today ?

[chernaudi]

Only major difference between the Audi SMG paddle shifter and the Ferrari system as far as I know is that the Audi system is an electro-pnumatic(pressurized air) system and the Ferrari is electo-hydraulic.

Seemed to be similar problems if electronics related, but I'm not 100% sure the Ferrari started out as electronics, but a mechancial problem that became electronic and then became an even bigger mechancial problem.

Any other major differences between the Audi SMG and the Ferrari SMG systems?

[Félix]

The Audi engine makes 4x the torque of an F1 car. It a 5-speed unit vs a 7-speed one. One has a pneumatic system, the other has an hydraulic one.

On the flipside, yes both had gear selection problems. End of similarity.

[gttouring]

ThiS seems to me a good time to just dump paddle shifters I like the rowing of a gear box lever and the odd variable it creates andthe heel toe dancing it requires but that's just me

[tristancliffe]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

Only major difference between the Audi SMG paddle shifter and the Ferrari system as far as I know is that the Audi system is an electro-pnumatic(pressurized air) system and the Ferrari is electo-hydraulic.

Seemed to be similar problems if electronics related, but I'm not 100% sure the Ferrari started out as electronics, but a mechancial problem that became electronic and then became an even bigger mechancial problem.

Any other major differences between the Audi SMG and the Ferrari SMG systems?

The only major difference between my road car and the Audi and the Ferrari is that mine is silver... what a minute, so is the Audi!

Sorry, but your comparison isn't valid at all, and I doubt the engine blow up had that much to do with the gear system issue.

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by tristancliffe

and I doubt the engine blow up had that much to do with the gear system issue.

Do you think not? I was thinking that possibly Alonso 'buzzed' the engine on a change down into what turned out to be the last corner of his race and that this may have been due to the down shifting problem....

[tristancliffe]

It's possible, but from the onboard shots he didn't seem to be struggling to change down and keep the revs low. If anything the revs were dropping too quickly for the broken system to properly cope with... But of course it is possible that the problem, whatever it was, selected a lower gear and shot the revs sky high for a second - would be great to see onboard during the engine failure.

[chernaudi]

Anyword on what actually caused Alonso's problems? As I mentoned, Wolfgang Ullrich from Audi said that the problem that McNish had was a $5 electronics part in the gear selector on the gearbox.

I guess now it should be asked if it was electronics that caused Alsonso's problems, or was it mechanicals or hydraulics? And what caused the engine failure? A dropped valve, I could understand, as that can easily happen from over-revving during a downshift(ironically, the reason why paddle operaged SMG's exhist, though interestingly, they use the same basic straight cut gears/dog clutch syncronizers that Ford and GM road racing transmissons used over 40 years ago), but it looked like the Ferrari threw a rod or a piece of a valve or piston was fired though the oil pan or block owing to the huge amount of oil smoke and the lack of it out the exhausts.

[betablocker]

to me it looked like a major downshift issue and when he went for the overtake on hamilton he out braked himself/ counldnt shift down quick enough and it may of downshifted twice and over reved it.

whatever happened it must of over revved and just at that point of overtake and these engines cant take an over rev anymore.