Triple Eight streaming drama: Full stewards decision

The Chevrolet team escaped penalty for a breach of the regulations regarding on-board cameras.

The mandatory live streaming from the cameras back to Supercars wasn’t working on either Will Brown or Broc Feeney’s cars during Saturday’s opening race at Symmons Plains.

The matter was investigated thoroughly by Motorsport Australia with a software issue leading to no further action being taken.

The full decision is outlined below.

Please note that this statement only references car #87 as there were separate (yet identical) statements provided per affected car.

FULL STEWARDS DECISION

The Stewards, having received a report from the MOM and having summoned and heard from the Team determine the following:

Competitor: Car 87 Triple Eight Race Engineering (Australia) Pty Ltd

Car and Driver: Car 87 Will Brown

Date: Saturday, 17 August 2024

Session: Race 17

Fact: The “Control” Scene Config in the Judicial In-Car Camera in Car 87 did not match the Config held by Supercars for Car 87 and the video stream output from the Camera was not operating.

Rule: D21.3 as modified by Article 5.19 of the Event Supplementary Regulations

Decision: No further action

Reason: During the 2023 Championship, Supercars first mandated the use of a dual function Judicial In- Car Camera system in each Car which is capable of recording footage to a SD card for judicial purposes and streaming in-car footage with overlayed telemetry live to an app via the VBOX system to which persons may subscribe.

The Rules for the installation and functionality of such cameras are set out in Rule D21.3 as amended by Article 5.19 of the Event Supplementary Regulations. Rule D21.3.2.2(a) relevantly provides that:
“Teams are not permitted under any circumstances to modify, edit or alter the “Control” Scene Config …without the approval of the GMM.”

Article D21.3.5.2 provides that:

“The Team will be required to ensure that the video stream output for judicial purposes is
functioning in the correct manner” [emphasis added] Rule D21.3.8 provides that:

“When requested to do so, a Team must immediately provide the SD Card or USB device to the RD, DRD or Supercars Official”.

It was not in issue that, while the footage captured by the camera had been saved to the SD card in the camera, there was no video stream output from the camera at any time during Race 17. Indeed, it was accepted that no video stream has been captured from the camera during any Session at this Event.
After Qualifying for Race 17 Supercars Technical personnel informed the Team that there was no video stream output from the camera. There had been no video stream from the camera during Practice 1 or Practice 2 but this had not been brought to the attention of the Team earlier.

Supercars provides to the Team a “Control” Config for each Car. The “Control” Config for this Car was an attachment to an email sent to the Team in May 2024. It had been loaded into the camera previously and had been operating as intended at the SMSP Event but with the permission of Supercars it had been removed and replaced for a subsequent Ride Day and then a Test Day. The Team re-loaded it just prior to the commencement of this Event.

Because no video stream had been received from the camera in the Car during Race 17 despite Supercars having warned the Team before the Race that it had not been received during any earlier Session at this Event, after Race 17 Supercars downloaded the “Control” Config settings stored in the memory of the camera. The “HDMI Feed” in those settings was set to “off” when the “Control” Config sent to the Team had that feed set to “on”. This explained why no video stream was being received from the camera. The Team was adamant that they had not changed the HDMI Feed setting to “off”.

During the hearing it emerged that the reason for the difference between the settings stored in the memory of the camera and the settings issued by Supercars was attributable to the fact that the VBOX software used by the Team to open and load the “Control” Config settings to the camera was an earlier version to that used by Supercars to configure the required settings and to check them.

To test whether the inconsistency in the settings might be explained by an incompatibility of the settings and the software version used by the Team, we invited the Team and Supercars Technical personnel to simulate the load and check of the “Control” Config settings issued using the earlier software version used by the Team. This revealed that loading the settings configured using the later software version into the earlier software version changed the “HDMI Feed” setting from “on” to “off” without any intervention to the settings. This would not have occurred had the settings provided by Supercars been simply dragged onto a SD card and loaded into the camera. It happened in this case because the settings file had been opened using the VBOX software and then loaded onto a SD card which was inserted in the camera to upload to the camera memory. There was nothing improper in the Team using that method to load the settings file. It followed, and the MOM accepted, that the allegation that the Team had changed the settings in breach of Rule D21.3.2.2(a) could not be established. The setting change was inadvertent and resulted only from an unanticipated incompatibility of the provided settings with the software used by the Team. Supercars Technical also acknowledged that the software version used by Supercars is not mandated and the Team were not to know that Supercars were configuring the settings using a later version.

However, there remains the issue that, although the reason for there being no video stream output from the camera could not have been known to the Team, nonetheless there was no feed being received by the cloud based decoder and then the Supercars app. As noted above, Rule D21.2.5.2 requires the Team to “ensure that the video stream output for judicial purposes is functioning in the correct manner”. The Team said that when they were first told there was an issue, they checked the connections to the camera and the display on the side of the camera appeared to indicate that it was operating as intended. They agreed that they did not check on the Supercars app to confirm that a video stream was being received from the Car, nor did they check on any additional apps (Core TV and Core Logic) which are available to the Teams. They admitted that they had not checked on any relevant app at any earlier time during the Event that a video stream output from the camera was being received. Supercars Technical submitted that the failure to make these checks and to have sought the assistance of Supercars to resolve the problem meant that Rule D21.3.5.2. was breached.

While the footage recorded on the SD card in the camera has always been recognised as required for judicial purposes, the video stream is not. It is evidence which can be considered by the Stewards but it is not a formal judicial tool. The camera did record footage captured by it onto the SD card. Therefore, the judicial function of the camera was fulfilled and the Team could have complied with the delivery up requirement in Rule D21.3.8. In our view, the words “for judicial purposes” in Rule D21.2.5.2 are a misnomer. Therefore, even if the streaming problem could have been detected and resolved earlier, it cannot be said that the Team failed to ensure it was operating “for judicial purposes”. For this reason, we decided to take no further action.

The Competitor is reminded that Decisions and Penalties that may be subject to Appeal are set out in B7.7.2 and the Rights to and process for an Appeal are set out in B5.