Mercedes Power Unit Hardware & Software

[Dee]

And how about Mercedes can show that the 'design performance' is only being achieved since Silverstone bc. there were some unreliability risks before they managed to iron those out with updates that were finally finalized at that GP? It rarely is as simple as you make it out to be.

"there were some unreliability risks before they managed to iron those out with updates that were finally finalized at that GP"

Unreliable means that you can run it but it is unreliable and may break down, therefore a risk

Unrealiable means that Mercedes run that technology at Bahrain and then do what Honda did, detune and fix it

What Mercedes did is run a Spec 1 engine in Bahrain and then added new technology to come back with a Spec 2 in Silverstone. This should not be at all allowed.

Your reasoning only works if Mercedes initially took that risk of running an unreliable mode, rather than detecting potential issues in testing and subsequently detuning the units before the 1st race, rather than doing like Honda who ran the 1st race in what turned out to be a risky mode during that race and having to only than having to detune it, making the issue visible to their competition.

And given how Mercedes have mostly been running their PU risk-averse during the hybrid-period, which is one reason they long had a much better reliability record than others (helped that they had an advantage that made that choice a lot easier), and with the limit on PU's allowed during a season it certainly makes sense to be conservative in running (esp. when they at the moment have the lead in the WDC). That's the whole reason there was speculation that the PU issues Williams had were due to them being allowed to do _more_ risky stuff than the factory team allowed itself.

You seem to be arguing from what you want things to be, rather from what's likely. I am not saying they cannot be doing something fishy or even illegal, but your argument doesn't make a good case for it.

"Your reasoning only works if Mercedes initially took that risk of running an unreliable mode, rather than detecting potential issues in testing and subsequently detuning the units before the 1st race"

You want the FIA to allow teams change their engines to a better engine mid season because they couldn't run their preferred one at the start? Updates are not allowed, whatsever. You run a detuned engine from race 1, that's your engine performance for the year. It's not the FIA's fault, or Honda's fault or anyone else's fault that Mercedes did not have their engine ready in time.

This technology is not a reliability upgrade anyway. They are not fixing anything. They are adding performance due to new technology that is being activated.

[Jolle]

Both Mercedes and Renault introduced big air boxes. Of course Ferrari and RedBull are wondering what’s happening in there. They probably are trying out technical directives to see what it is. They know they hit jackpot the moment Mercedes comes to a GP without the sexy bulges.

[bosyber]

"there were some unreliability risks before they managed to iron those out with updates that were finally finalized at that GP"

Unreliable means that you can run it but it is unreliable and may break down, therefore a risk

Unrealiable means that Mercedes run that technology at Bahrain and then do what Honda did, detune and fix it

What Mercedes did is run a Spec 1 engine in Bahrain and then added new technology to come back with a Spec 2 in Silverstone. This should not be at all allowed.

Your reasoning only works if Mercedes initially took that risk of running an unreliable mode, rather than detecting potential issues in testing and subsequently detuning the units before the 1st race, rather than doing like Honda who ran the 1st race in what turned out to be a risky mode during that race and having to only than having to detune it, making the issue visible to their competition.

And given how Mercedes have mostly been running their PU risk-averse during the hybrid-period, which is one reason they long had a much better reliability record than others (helped that they had an advantage that made that choice a lot easier), and with the limit on PU's allowed during a season it certainly makes sense to be conservative in running (esp. when they at the moment have the lead in the WDC). That's the whole reason there was speculation that the PU issues Williams had were due to them being allowed to do _more_ risky stuff than the factory team allowed itself.

You seem to be arguing from what you want things to be, rather from what's likely. I am not saying they cannot be doing something fishy or even illegal, but your argument doesn't make a good case for it.

"Your reasoning only works if Mercedes initially took that risk of running an unreliable mode, rather than detecting potential issues in testing and subsequently detuning the units before the 1st race"

You want the FIA to allow teams change their engines to a better engine mid season because they couldn't run their preferred one at the start? Updates are not allowed, whatsever. You run a detuned engine from race 1, that's your engine performance for the year. It's not the FIA's fault, or Honda's fault or anyone else's fault that Mercedes did not have their engine ready in time.

This technology is not a reliability upgrade anyway. They are not fixing anything. They are adding performance due to new technology that is being activated.

Okay final interaction on this because I don't have much belief you are actually interacting in good faith. I do not 'want' the FIA to 'allow' anything but the rules.

If Mercedes ran their PU (almost) as is from the start, but have now fixed other things (like maybe cooling? or new oil, like what apparently helped Honda get back their Bahrein performance?), or modified some 'small', clearly defined things for reliability fixes (as allowed by the rules), and thus now have found solutions that mean they don't have to run those same units detuned wrt. to what they had originally designed for, but not ran them in races as, then there's nothing they did wrong or what the FIA would prohibit.

As far as I know, what isn't allowed is changes to the hardware, and big fuel changes over the year, but as you admitted, reliability fixes are allowed (if they can be proven to be that), and no one is prohibited from having engine modes that they cannot use for the year until they fixed what made them a problem to use.

None of that says Mercedes didn't (also?) do something/designed the system to work in a way that is counter the rules (in a Ferrari-2019 like sense?), which might be uncovered with that Red Bull action, but it certainly isn't as automatic as you imply.

[Dee]

Your reasoning only works if Mercedes initially took that risk of running an unreliable mode, rather than detecting potential issues in testing and subsequently detuning the units before the 1st race, rather than doing like Honda who ran the 1st race in what turned out to be a risky mode during that race and having to only than having to detune it, making the issue visible to their competition.

And given how Mercedes have mostly been running their PU risk-averse during the hybrid-period, which is one reason they long had a much better reliability record than others (helped that they had an advantage that made that choice a lot easier), and with the limit on PU's allowed during a season it certainly makes sense to be conservative in running (esp. when they at the moment have the lead in the WDC). That's the whole reason there was speculation that the PU issues Williams had were due to them being allowed to do _more_ risky stuff than the factory team allowed itself.

You seem to be arguing from what you want things to be, rather from what's likely. I am not saying they cannot be doing something fishy or even illegal, but your argument doesn't make a good case for it.

"Your reasoning only works if Mercedes initially took that risk of running an unreliable mode, rather than detecting potential issues in testing and subsequently detuning the units before the 1st race"

You want the FIA to allow teams change their engines to a better engine mid season because they couldn't run their preferred one at the start? Updates are not allowed, whatsever. You run a detuned engine from race 1, that's your engine performance for the year. It's not the FIA's fault, or Honda's fault or anyone else's fault that Mercedes did not have their engine ready in time.

This technology is not a reliability upgrade anyway. They are not fixing anything. They are adding performance due to new technology that is being activated.

Okay final interaction on this because I don't have much belief you are actually interacting in good faith. I do not 'want' the FIA to 'allow' anything but the rules.

If Mercedes ran their PU (almost) as is from the start, but have now fixed other things (like maybe cooling? or new oil, like what apparently helped Honda get back their Bahrein performance?), or modified some 'small', clearly defined things for reliability fixes (as allowed by the rules), and thus now have found solutions that mean they don't have to run those same units detuned wrt. to what they had originally designed for, but not ran them in races as, then there's nothing they did wrong or what the FIA would prohibit.

As far as I know, what isn't allowed is changes to the hardware, and big fuel changes over the year, but as you admitted, reliability fixes are allowed (if they can be proven to be that), and no one is prohibited from having engine modes that they cannot use for the year until they fixed what made them a problem to use.

None of that says Mercedes didn't (also?) do something/designed the system to work in a way that is counter the rules (in a Ferrari-2019 like sense?), which might be uncovered with that Red Bull action, but it certainly isn't as automatic as you imply.

I have no problem with Mercedes doing that either IF they had that proven performance from the start.

"no one is prohibited from having engine modes that they cannot use for the year until they fixed what made them a problem to use", To me this doesn't make sense. Having something you cannot use from the start of the season means that you are adding performance. You are going from Level 1 to Level 2. In my eyes the rules state you start at level 1 and stay at level 1. Everything is theoretical anyway until physically run. How can Mercedes show the FIA what the performance is if they can't perform it from race 1 itself? How has it been proven?

It's like having a half made cake in a cake contest and asking the judges to give you an extra half an hour over the competition so you can still enter and win

Fine if Mercedes had this power in Bahrain like Honda, but they didn't, so they shouldn't have it now imo

I'm not here to not change my mind but you haven't said anything that would make me agree that Mercedes are in the right to have this extra performance appear midway into a season where engine performance updates are banned

[dans79]

"no one is prohibited from having engine modes that they cannot use for the year until they fixed what made them a problem to use", To me this doesn't make sense. Having something you cannot use from the start of the season means that you are adding performance. You are going from Level 1 to Level 2. In my eyes the rules state you start at level 1 and stay at level 1. Everything is theoretical anyway until physically run. How can Mercedes show the FIA what the performance is if they can't perform it from race 1 itself? How has it been proven?

It's like having a half made cake in a cake contest and asking the judges to give you an extra half an hour over the competition so you can still enter and win

Fine if Mercedes had this power in Bahrain like Honda, but they didn't, so they shouldn't have it now imo

I'm not here to not change my mind but you haven't said anything that would make me agree that Mercedes are in the right to have this extra performance appear midway into a season where engine performance updates are banned

You are drastically over simplifying it. Teams are only prevented from bringing physical upgrades to the PU.

If they have a software issue, or a non regulated component that is limiting PU performance they can fix the issue at any time and then increase the output of the engine.

[Dee]

"no one is prohibited from having engine modes that they cannot use for the year until they fixed what made them a problem to use", To me this doesn't make sense. Having something you cannot use from the start of the season means that you are adding performance. You are going from Level 1 to Level 2. In my eyes the rules state you start at level 1 and stay at level 1. Everything is theoretical anyway until physically run. How can Mercedes show the FIA what the performance is if they can't perform it from race 1 itself? How has it been proven?

It's like having a half made cake in a cake contest and asking the judges to give you an extra half an hour over the competition so you can still enter and win

Fine if Mercedes had this power in Bahrain like Honda, but they didn't, so they shouldn't have it now imo

I'm not here to not change my mind but you haven't said anything that would make me agree that Mercedes are in the right to have this extra performance appear midway into a season where engine performance updates are banned

You are drastically over simplifying it. Teams are only prevented from bringing physical upgrades to the PU.

If they have a software issue, or a non regulated component that is limiting PU performance they can fix the issue at any time and then increase the output of the engine.

1. The software issue Mercedes has had from the start is with ERS at the end of the lap I believe and from the current article I read, they still have this issue as the engine performance does not last the distance, only a short moment in acceleration

2. Again, are Mercedes not adding performance with a non regulated component rather than fixing an issue with that compenent? Mercedes has never publicly stated that they had cooling issues with the intercooler. This 20HP boost has never been seen before Silverstone. It was not a proven performance, it was not fixed...

Are you saying that you can bring a physical upgrade to a non regulated component which can affect the performance of the engine, to increase it, and that this is legal?

[godlameroso]

"no one is prohibited from having engine modes that they cannot use for the year until they fixed what made them a problem to use", To me this doesn't make sense. Having something you cannot use from the start of the season means that you are adding performance. You are going from Level 1 to Level 2. In my eyes the rules state you start at level 1 and stay at level 1. Everything is theoretical anyway until physically run. How can Mercedes show the FIA what the performance is if they can't perform it from race 1 itself? How has it been proven?

It's like having a half made cake in a cake contest and asking the judges to give you an extra half an hour over the competition so you can still enter and win

Fine if Mercedes had this power in Bahrain like Honda, but they didn't, so they shouldn't have it now imo

I'm not here to not change my mind but you haven't said anything that would make me agree that Mercedes are in the right to have this extra performance appear midway into a season where engine performance updates are banned

You are drastically over simplifying it. Teams are only prevented from bringing physical upgrades to the PU.

If they have a software issue, or a non regulated component that is limiting PU performance they can fix the issue at any time and then increase the output of the engine.

1. The software issue Mercedes has had from the start is with ERS at the end of the lap I believe and from the current article I read, they still have this issue as the engine performance does not last the distance, only a short moment in acceleration

2. Again, are Mercedes not adding performance with a non regulated component rather than fixing an issue with that compenent? Mercedes has never publicly stated that they had cooling issues with the intercooler. This 20HP boost has never been seen before Silverstone. It was not a proven performance, it was not fixed...

Are you saying that you can bring a physical upgrade to a non regulated component which can affect the performance of the engine, to increase it, and that this is legal?

That is the mark of the truly special teams, they get treated special in order to promote equity. That's why Mercedes has enjoyed such close competition through the years, winning at least over half the races of every season since 2014. They're always getting held back by the man.

[dans79]

2. Again, are Mercedes not adding performance with a non regulated component rather than fixing an issue with that compenent? Mercedes has never publicly stated that they had cooling issues with the intercooler. This 20HP boost has never been seen before Silverstone. It was not a proven performance, it was not fixed...

If a component isn't regulated they don't have to fix it, they can just design and manufacture something new. Teams don't have to publicly state anything, specially when it come to none restricted components.

Are you saying that you can bring a physical upgrade to a non regulated component which can affect the performance of the engine, to increase it, and that this is legal?

Yes


Don't write off the other big change Merc had in Silverstone, the aero upgrade that allowed them to use smaller rear wings.

Since the update they have started running smaller wings. They don't need nearly as much power to reach a given speed, because the rear wing isn't producing as much drag as it did previously. Rear wings produce ~30% of the entire cars drag.

If they need less power at the end of the strait because they have less drag, then can tweak the ICE mappings, and ES deployment mappings to give them more umff in the traction zone as the beginning of the straits.

Everything is interconnected, and not nearly as simple and straightforward as many in the press try to make it sound!

[zibby43]

[dans79]

https://twitter.com/scarbstech/status/1 ... 72809?s=21

https://twitter.com/scarbstech/status/1 ... 77888?s=21

I'm not seeing how the first tweet calling it a pressure vessel would work. Air has to flow through it, even at low rpm.

[Dee]

https://twitter.com/scarbstech/status/1 ... 72809?s=21

https://twitter.com/scarbstech/status/1 ... 77888?s=21

Very clever

Does this have to be cool to be effective?

How do Mercedes get it to cool if they can't go lower than the +10 Deg ambient air?

[zibby43]

https://twitter.com/scarbstech/status/1 ... 72809?s=21

https://twitter.com/scarbstech/status/1 ... 77888?s=21

I'm not seeing how the first tweet calling it a pressure vessel would work. Air has to flow through it, even at low rpm.

I’m hoping he follows up on this later. Scarbs is also active here, so maybe he’ll chime in.

The more I read, the more this seems like a fishing expedition for RB and Ferrari to try to incorporate this going forward.

[Big Tea]

How can they possible cool the intake air further, after the intercoolers??
All I can think about is vortex cooling, but that also create extra hot air as a by product, which I don't think they're allowed to dump ...

https://www.vortec.com/Content/Images/u ... nology.png

Are they allowed to inject a 'substance' not considered fuel at any point? cool by evaporation?

[Hoffman900]

How can they possible cool the intake air further, after the intercoolers??
All I can think about is vortex cooling, but that also create extra hot air as a by product, which I don't think they're allowed to dump ...

https://www.vortec.com/Content/Images/u ... nology.png

Are they allowed to inject a 'substance' not considered fuel at any point? cool by evaporation?

Expansion into the plenum.

With drive by wire / throttle bodies in the runner, and their injector setups, it frees you up big time in terms of plenum shape / sizing. I’m sure the turbo being disconnected from the exhaust gas speed has a part in that as well.

[N21]

I’m honestly interested in how Mercedes is doing this regardless of the legality.

I’m no engineer but for adiabatic cooling by expansion you first need compression of the presumed plenum / pressure vessel right? So would this mean turbo pressure loss while building pressure in the plenum?

It is also rumored that the gains are during early acceleration and not so much at top speed. Could this specific early (temporary) gain explain why the average of the FIA temperature sensor shows normal readings of ambient temp +10?

And finally I also wonder why we have only first come witness these gains since Silverstone. The bulge has been there since reveal so why hold back?