An issue with the GPS system left F1 drivers 'blind' during the opening practice session for the AustralianGP, leading to a red flag. Here's the explanation of what happened:
The opening one-hour practice session at Albert Park was stopped after 40 minutes when it became clear that teams were unable to track cars on the circuit and as a result, there were several crash near-misses.
But Autosport/Motorsport.com has learned that the primary cause of the problem was not a failure of the GPS system F1 uses, as this remained active for the FIA's monitoring systems in race control. Instead, the system that tracks what tyres each car is running while out on the circuit and distributes that information to the live timing and television graphic systems failed and in turn, this scrambled the distribution network of several other data systems, including the GPS positioning information on its way to the teams.
Once the root problem had been rectified, the FIA was able to restart FP1, which was eventually topped by Red Bull'sDiscussing the situation after the wet FP2 session on Friday, several drivers agreed with the FIA's call to stop FP1 given the lack of GPS data for the teams."It depends on the track but when there's lots of traffic and half of the field is on a fast lap and half of the field is on a slow lap then it's a bit blind. So, I think it's a bit of a safety thing.
"I think it would be manageable [to carry out without teams having GPS positioning information], but there's this one extra risk factor that somebody's parked in a blind corner and someone who comes flat out without information."
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