Sap , mclaren 's long-time business software partner , is involved in just about every area - from supply chain management to trackside data processing - but one of its key roles is in the development of the car 's v8 engine .
During a summertime thunderstorm last july , according to wednesday 's report , a trackside piece of signaling equipment called a lkd2-t1 failed after a lightning strike , thereby cutting off the electronic channel for messages to pass between trains and the dispatch computers .
