Mercedes-AMG Solves Early Torque Sensor Gremlins

Photo: Jake Galstad/IMSA

Mercedes-AMG has solved the torque sensor-related communication data issue that prevented its GTD Pro and GTD customer entries from properly being regulated in the opening day of the Roar Before the Rolex 24.

Head of Mercedes-AMG customer racing Stefan Wendl revealed to Sportscar365 that an overnight firmware update developed by its staff in Germany, which was run on the Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evos in this morning’s Roar session, has produced the needed fix.

“Cars ran yesterday unrestricted several times,” Wendl told Sportscar365. “We made different attempts, as we identified very early that our software was not prepared in the right way.

“We tried to do some workarounds to solve the problems and at least give them a chance to drive yesterday and to roll-in parts. This is what we’ve done.

“In Germany our people worked on a new software solution, a new firmware update, which was ready this morning at 7 a.m. when the garages opened.

“We tested everything and finally after the session I can say that now everything is working well and we sorted out the problem, which is very good.

“I’m really thankful for all our guys which worked so hard to make this happen.”

Wendl explained that the issue was related to the communication between Mercedes-AMG’s newly developed ECU and the IMSA-supplied ECU that controls the power output through the torque sensors.

Mercedes-AMG was the only GT3 manufacturer without previous torque sensor experience from the FIA World Endurance Championship’s LMGT3 class last year, with Wendl revealing that the manufacturer was hit with delays.

“We are lacking experience with the system and we are in the development,” he said. “So far we are very happy with what we’ve achieved with our internal development about the driveshafts.

“But at the end we missed due to parts availability the December testing. This one we would have needed to have sorted out all the small things.

“It means that it’s very difficult to jump into the public with five cars, in the hands of our customers, and still not having everything tested with what we would have liked to test.

“We never had the chance to test the combination out of our ECU and our software solution we developed and the mandatory IMSA ECU.”

With the problem now solved, Wendl said they can now work with their customer teams to get fully integrated into the new system, despite the early hurdles.

Sportscar365 understands that both the No. 80 Lone Star Racing and No. 75 SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMGs have encountered broken wiring looms that were believed to have been triggered by IMSA’s mandated driveshaft spin tests.

“Now we start with all the other things, which come at the Roar weekend and the preparation of such a big event that you have to work out [like] setup, getting drivers drive time and other small things to get used to this new opportunity,” Wendl said.

“On one hand for IMSA it’s a BoP tool, which is now instead of a restriction by air restrictor in the car.

“But on the other hand for teams, drivers, it offers now a strategic option to work with it, when to use the power delivery and it’s a very characteristic track here with a mechanically-dominated first sector and then two power-dominated second and third sectors.

“There’s a lot of things to learn and to do where we now can start this. But we are just at the beginning.

“It’s not only us as a manufacturer at the end. We need to bring our support crew with our support engineers in the U.S. We need to integrate them and transfer the data we experienced in those development tests at the end of last year.

“We have to transport it into our crews and our customer teams.

“This is a process that we’re really happy that we got supported by our customers that well. They stayed calm and patient for yesterday, which was hurting a little bit.

“But we hope we find the right way to get the preparation ready for next week’s 24-hour race.”