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While the technical regulations regarding the power units are going into their 4th stable year, Mercedes' engine Chief, Andy Cowell, has noted there are still gains to be made. Cowell underlined that the key to these continued improvements are Mercedes' proven testing facility.
Not to mention from what I read when it first started happening, most of them weren't engineers but manufacturing people!
Some of the ex-Merc employees are still in their gardening leave though. Don’t expect their presence to be felt at RB until 2023 season at the earliest
As far as I remember, the MB strengthened the fasteners and the places of the seals, which affected the weight towards its increase, but this was a forced measure to get through the season without problems.AeroDynamic wrote: ↑12 Jan 2022, 12:23Regarding engines, it was said Mercedes’ improved engine weighed significantly more than the previous iteration through last season. I’m not sure if those reports were accurate or simply rumour.
So, I was hoping some knowledge-heads in this area could break down for us, what impact would a heavier engine have on set up / balance of a car? Does the car just simply go a bit slower due to the weight and no other impact, or does the weight distribution affect the balance and leave them having to rediscover / calibrate car balance further to adapt to the new weight?
If it is true they are going to have the engine advantage until 2025. Ferrari too managed to make the deficit and too improve the engine like Merceded but that means that the gap between the engine remains the same, and the Mercedes engine without reliability probles was more powerfull than the Ferrari one. What we here from Honda and Renault is not so optimistic. They didnt managed to make the gap compared to last year engines until to date. If all this rumours are true than there are massive news for Hamilton (if he does not retire) and Leclerc and Max is locked until 2026 with an inferior engine.
The Stella enters the new era of ground-effect single-seaters with the awareness of counting on engine supremacy. The M13 E Performance power unit will feature a new supercharging system which is the result of the experience brought by a new German engineer. At the chassis level, however, there is some more doubt about the choice of the wheelbase that will be close to the 3,600 mm limit.
Mercedes has a certainty and a doubt. The doubt, of course, does not concern whether Lewis Hamilton will be in his place at the wheel of the W13 or not, given that the hepta-champion, despite the "wall of silence" erected after the contested final in Abu Dhabi, will be regularly in his place. .
The certainty concerns the new power unit that will be homologated before the Bahrain GP and which will represent the strength of the W13, the ground-effect single-seater that will be presented on February 18 in streaming.
Hywel Thomas, Chief Engineer at Brixworth, is deliberating a power unit that should represent a leap forward from last year's unit, the F1 M12 E Performance 6-cylinder. That engine had revealed weaknesses towards the end of its life, forcing the Mercedes engineers to shorten its duration (Lewis Hamiltion used 5 PUs in the 2021 season, and Valtteri Bottas even six, while the FIA limit included a maximum of three in order not to finish in penalty).
With a shorter use (four GPs instead of eight) the Brixworth technicians took risks on reliability, pushing the engine mappings far beyond the limits they had set for the season, being able to draw on horsepower that had always remained in the engine availability, but they had never been touched for fear of breakage.
Evidently, not reaching premature aging, the engine could give its best, re-establishing an indisputable superiority over the still valid Honda engine that led Hamilton to be on par with Verstappen before the last Abu Dhabi GP.
In the standard configuration, the Mercedes power unit provided 1,026 horsepower, while the super-engine of the Brazilian GP in qualifying unleashed an additional 18 horsepower, that is to say a power of 1,044 horsepower thanks to an extreme map.
New German turbo specialist
The arrival of a German specialist in Brixworth would have allowed the development of a new turbocharger capable of enhancing the qualities of the 6-cylinder and hybrid recharging, allowing more extreme strategies, especially since the Petronas chemists, gasoline suppliers, they would have easily recovered the 20 horsepower lost in the first bench tests with E10 fuels, just as it should have happened to Ferrari with Shell. If the power unit is to be a staple in the world championship, there is some doubt about the W13.
