I haven't logged on in quite some time, so I just saw your post. I'm a big F1 fan and a big McLaren fan, and I find it interesting that McLaren uses Sun software for their telemetry. I'd be surprised if Java were actually what was running their launch control/engine maintenance package, but hey... could be.
Anyway, you can't blame the programming language for failures in the software. Most programs written in Java deal with a rather stringent set of inputs... like a
String from a user or a click of the mouse, etc. This makes them easy to
test. Imagine trying to write a program to calculate engine spark on an 18,000 rpm engine, with inputs like tire wear, ambient temperature, track temperature, vehicle weight, clutch wear, etc. etc. etc...
The code may work perfectly well in all tested situations, but there's no way that you can generate "test cases" for all F1 situations that you'll see during the course of a season. As time wears on they'll get the bugs out... in fact they seem to have done just that, and now it's Williams that need some help
-tim