Mercedes Power Unit Hardware & Software

[saviour stivala]

‘’As it stands they are not sure if the engine is messing the car or the car is messing the engine’’. According to them it is a bit of both. Both contributing to their mess.

[N21]

Mercedes had crazy power at the end of last season. lewis could manage to effortlessly overtake half way down the straights.
I think FIA found something ala Ferrari and forced mercedes to quietly change a "illegal" system.
The sudden loss of power with all MB powered teams are just like it was when Ferrari was caught out and quietly forced to change.

This would absolutely not surprise me. I was thinking the same thing the other day

I'm avoiding the tinfoil for a bit... however, the pursuit of making stuff extra small has never gelled well with making more power.
Even in the article about how this engine is the most changed since 2014 all they talk about is helping the chassis and aero.

Well I’m not saying this is true but the current deficit seems apparent while Hamiltons’ 2021 rocket engine was in a league of its own. And it’s not like things like these have never happened before in F1.

[DutchPanther]

Do you think that Merc would ask the HPP boys to tone the engine down till they fully solve all the chassis issues because of which even the customer teams are not getting aggressively tuned engine maps because all the customer teams must have the same softwares and hardwares (Technical Directive TD/005-18)?

[matteosc]

Mercedes had crazy power at the end of last season. lewis could manage to effortlessly overtake half way down the straights.
I think FIA found something ala Ferrari and forced mercedes to quietly change a "illegal" system.
The sudden loss of power with all MB powered teams are just like it was when Ferrari was caught out and quietly forced to change.

Mercedes had crazy power for 3 races and it was notoriously losing more power than Honda/Ferrari/Renault at every race.

I've been wondering what was in ( added end of the year? ) to the fuel, on Hamiltons's car at least, last year to "find" that out of the blue performance. And, aside from the conspiracy point of view, what was in the 5%? that was substituted for ethanol, that has caused such a loss for them. The above could hold some truth, or they knew that they would get found out sooner or later.

The fuel was the same, they would have to report if anything changed and have the new fuel approved. I really think there was no difference in engine or fuel, just a less conservative use of engine parameters.

I remember hearing during a GP something about the 5% of last year's fuels, and it wasn't ethanol from renewable sources as it is the 10% used now. It was some kind of alcohol, but I cannot remember which one. And yes, all fuel supplied used some sort of compound to increase performance, obviously. If Mercedes had an advantage in that department, they would be among the most penalized by this year's fuel.

[TNTHead]

Mercedes had crazy power for 3 races and it was notoriously losing more power than Honda/Ferrari/Renault at every race.

I've been wondering what was in ( added end of the year? ) to the fuel, on Hamiltons's car at least, last year to "find" that out of the blue performance. And, aside from the conspiracy point of view, what was in the 5%? that was substituted for ethanol, that has caused such a loss for them. The above could hold some truth, or they knew that they would get found out sooner or later.

The fuel was the same, they would have to report if anything changed and have the new fuel approved. I really think there was no difference in engine or fuel, just a less conservative use of engine parameters.

I remember hearing during a GP something about the 5% of last year's fuels, and it wasn't ethanol from renewable sources as it is the 10% used now. It was some kind of alcohol, but I cannot remember which one. And yes, all fuel supplied used some sort of compound to increase performance, obviously. If Mercedes had an advantage in that department, they would be among the most penalized by this year's fuel.

In the Honda engine thread it was stated that the 5% of last years fuel was non bio butanol, versus 10% bio based ethanol for this year. Obviously butanol has a higher energy content than ethanol. May be the Merc fuel spec of last year did contain some exotic mixture enhancing comustion efficiency / stability. Probably they are hampered some way by the mandatory biobased ethanol.

[PlatinumZealot]

Just did a random websearch on E10 racing fuels. The highest rated unleaded fuel on Sunoco's website is similar to E10 in that it contains 11% to 15% Ethyl alcohol so go figure.

[mclaren_mircea]

This is BS. They are already almost 1 second slower in race pace compared to the best. From now on until Barcelona, Red Bull and Ferrari will gain half a second because at Barcelona all the big teams will have big upgrades. So nothing changes. At beat they will level the force with RB and Ferrari. This car has been an epic failure until now with all its problems. It was arrogance and underestimating the competition like they did with no tokens spent last year too. They could not anticipate that the whole concept has to decrease air resistance from the nose to the real whels not just the sidepods. The porpoising was solved by RB with the upgrade before the season started and Mercedes is not even sure how to solve it. It is so painful the fact that they switched earlier than Red Bull (but later than Ferrari) the resources for the 2022 car and still they are slower. What if Red bull switched effort earlier than they did? What would have been the difference???? What I cant understant what they are doing with the simulation and wind tunnel tools if they could not even acurately simulate the porpoising effect??? What did they think? Make the arrangements and interna coolings of the engine and transmission to make very tiny sidepods and that was all? That was the game changer that they could not even think about remotely?? What car is that that is so slim, so skinny and still be the heaviest on the grid??? Totto was talking in June that the 2022 car is not a baby anymore? That the project is mature enough while at the same time Red Bull was taking vans with aero bits in France and Austria? Where are those hours in the wind tunnel and CFD?? Is Newey so good to make this good car so late in development cycle?

Agreed. Arrogance, and underestimated for sure. Considering there's no budget cap for PU development, they totally got complacent. Not only did they botch the aero, they botched how much of a change E10 would do to their PU

At least they have time to go full-beams with the battery development until september. Can they become the most powerfull engine by investing full power in the electrical and battery level??? Or is not enough to be gain here?

[AR3-GP]

This is BS. They are already almost 1 second slower in race pace compared to the best. From now on until Barcelona, Red Bull and Ferrari will gain half a second because at Barcelona all the big teams will have big upgrades. So nothing changes. At beat they will level the force with RB and Ferrari. This car has been an epic failure until now with all its problems. It was arrogance and underestimating the competition like they did with no tokens spent last year too. They could not anticipate that the whole concept has to decrease air resistance from the nose to the real whels not just the sidepods. The porpoising was solved by RB with the upgrade before the season started and Mercedes is not even sure how to solve it. It is so painful the fact that they switched earlier than Red Bull (but later than Ferrari) the resources for the 2022 car and still they are slower. What if Red bull switched effort earlier than they did? What would have been the difference???? What I cant understant what they are doing with the simulation and wind tunnel tools if they could not even acurately simulate the porpoising effect??? What did they think? Make the arrangements and interna coolings of the engine and transmission to make very tiny sidepods and that was all? That was the game changer that they could not even think about remotely?? What car is that that is so slim, so skinny and still be the heaviest on the grid??? Totto was talking in June that the 2022 car is not a baby anymore? That the project is mature enough while at the same time Red Bull was taking vans with aero bits in France and Austria? Where are those hours in the wind tunnel and CFD?? Is Newey so good to make this good car so late in development cycle?

Agreed. Arrogance, and underestimated for sure. Considering there's no budget cap for PU development, they totally got complacent. Not only did they botch the aero, they botched how much of a change E10 would do to their PU

At least they have time to go full-beams with the battery development until september. Can they become the most powerfull engine by investing full power in the electrical and battery level??? Or is not enough to be gain here?

They can reduce the cooling requirement of the MGU-K and battery or reduce the heat generation. All will have impact on ability to deploy at maximum for longer, and reduce the cooling drag.

[mclaren_mircea]

Agreed. Arrogance, and underestimated for sure. Considering there's no budget cap for PU development, they totally got complacent. Not only did they botch the aero, they botched how much of a change E10 would do to their PU

At least they have time to go full-beams with the battery development until september. Can they become the most powerfull engine by investing full power in the electrical and battery level??? Or is not enough to be gain here?

They can reduce the cooling requirement of the MGU-K and battery or reduce the heat generation. All will have impact on ability to deploy at maximum for longer, and reduce the cooling drag.

Thanks for the clarifications. Fingers crossed.

[Cassius]

Agreed. Arrogance, and underestimated for sure. Considering there's no budget cap for PU development, they totally got complacent. Not only did they botch the aero, they botched how much of a change E10 would do to their PU

At least they have time to go full-beams with the battery development until september. Can they become the most powerfull engine by investing full power in the electrical and battery level??? Or is not enough to be gain here?

They can reduce the cooling requirement of the MGU-K and battery or reduce the heat generation. All will have impact on ability to deploy at maximum for longer, and reduce the cooling drag.

Don't think there are significant gains to be made in these areas still after 8 years. But we will see.

[AR3-GP]

At least they have time to go full-beams with the battery development until september. Can they become the most powerfull engine by investing full power in the electrical and battery level??? Or is not enough to be gain here?

They can reduce the cooling requirement of the MGU-K and battery or reduce the heat generation. All will have impact on ability to deploy at maximum for longer, and reduce the cooling drag.

Don't think there are significant gains to be made in these areas still after 8 years. But we will see.

Renault, Ferrari, and Honda all seemed to make a lot of gains in this area in the last 2 years.

[vorticism]

Any guesses why the inlet boxes have changed shape this year? They are bolted together as halves forming one large pressure vessel (before they had a thin CF cover wrapping the runners). Previously they were set above the vee, now they are set farther out, over the valve covers.



For comparison:

[vorticism]

By pushing the airboxes out to the sides, this gives the mothership team better flow to their rear radiator. They can run the ducting through there more directly. As for making it one big clamshell, this probably allows them to lightweight all the runners inside. Might also be that they have a new VIM concept.

[AR3-GP]

By pushing the airboxes out to the sides, this gives the mothership team better flow to their rear [/url]

Are you using google translate?

[vorticism]

By pushing the airboxes out to the sides, this gives the mothership team better flow to their rear [/url]

Are you using google translate?

In English its a euphamism for 'main' or 'central.' Merc is the works team.