2021 AMG Mercedes F1 Team

[Marty_Y]

That Honda engine is annoyingly reliable.
If it goes to the end that's 8 races straight. Very impressive. It's been in from Russia.
That block must be made out of titanium. I kinda waiting to see if even the slightest of issue happens to any of their units.

Mercedes have a lot of work to do to create a similarly bullet proof engine next year. And they dont have an aircraft division to take materials and turbine knowledge from.
This year's unit has worn out like paper straw in a hot beverage.

Apparently it was a batch issue for materials and it was rectified with PU4 (the Turkey unit) for Hamilton (per Mark Hughes).

PU5 was a strategic choice to run with more juice to the end with PU4 serving as the practice unit (per Shovlin).

So, to your point, I think they’ve worked hard this year to resolve the issue as best as possible.

The batch issue explanation that mark Hughes suggested sounds more plausible than some of the other things that have been speculated about imo.

Yes there have been some issues this year but it's worth remembering that neither of the Mercedes team cars have had a DNF from mechanical failure, they've had to take penalties for using more engines than permitted which isn't ideal in a tight championship battle but it's probably better to be cautious rather than risking a failure leading to a DNF.

[_cerber1]

This is what Red Bull went to the FIA with

[SiLo]

This is what Red Bull went to the FIA with

Wouldn't it also occur when DRS is active as well? The air is still passing over that part of the wing. Or does the higher pressure differential act as a "vent" forcing the lower plane down more when the DRS isn't active?

[Morteza]

[nacho]

Wouldn't all the rear wing flei stuff be visible from the onboard camera?

[ringo]

The mercedes wing columns hold the wing in the middle. It's unlikely they design those columns to collapse as the whole wing assembly will simply move downward. It's difficult to see the gooseneck supports bending downward and the upper flap staying in the same place. The supports would be so soft we would see them oscilating.

[pb6797]

That Honda engine is annoyingly reliable.
If it goes to the end that's 8 races straight. Very impressive. It's been in from Russia.
That block must be made out of titanium. I kinda waiting to see if even the slightest of issue happens to any of their units.

Mercedes have a lot of work to do to create a similarly bullet proof engine next year. And they dont have an aircraft division to take materials and turbine knowledge from.
This year's unit has worn out like paper straw in a hot beverage.

Do we know for sure that Red Bull are using that same unit for every race? Max took a new unit in Hungary and another new on in Russia. His Hungary unit only really did three races - Hungary, Holland and Italy. Spa doesn't really count.

Is it not possible that Max's Hungary engine has done a couple of races since then? So more like 5 or 6 races each? Not much more than the "Four engine special" that people are saying Hamilton now has.

[dans79]

Do we know for sure that Red Bull are using that same unit for every race? Max took a new unit in Hungary and another new on in Russia. His Hungary unit only really did three races - Hungary, Holland and Italy. Spa doesn't really count.

Is it not possible that Max's Hungary engine has done a couple of races since then? So more like 5 or 6 races each? Not much more than the "Four engine special" that people are saying Hamilton now has.

No one outside of the team and the fIA will know for sure. with that being said what teams normally do it designate older power units for FP1 & FP2, and then saturday and sunday they use the newest unit. Caveats exist of course, like an older unit can sometimes be used for less power sensitive races. However we have had a lot of power sensitive tracks recently, and that's personally why i think RB is lacking speed somewhat, I think they are running lower modes so they can try and avoid taking an additional unit!

[El Scorchio]

https://youtu.be/svQtW0axKwY

Good egg

[dans79]

This is what Red Bull went to the FIA with

Wouldn't it also occur when DRS is active as well? The air is still passing over that part of the wing. Or does the higher pressure differential act as a "vent" forcing the lower plane down more when the DRS isn't active?

Honestly it sounds like a bunch of blonly to me.

the tweet is basically implying that merc is using a slight derivation of what teams did in 05/06. Back then teams found that if the gap between the top and bottom element narrowed, they could stall the wing. To do this they designed the upper element to flex down at a certain speed to stall the wing.

To prevent this the FIA mandated that slot gap separators be added to the wing. That is where the 10mm limit comes from in the rule that Mercedes failed to pass after qualifying. You can read about them in section 3.6.4 of the technical regulations.

[Kingshark]

That Honda engine is annoyingly reliable.
If it goes to the end that's 8 races straight. Very impressive. It's been in from Russia.
That block must be made out of titanium. I kinda waiting to see if even the slightest of issue happens to any of their units.

Mercedes have a lot of work to do to create a similarly bullet proof engine next year. And they dont have an aircraft division to take materials and turbine knowledge from.
This year's unit has worn out like paper straw in a hot beverage.

If Mercedes ran their engines at the same power output Honda do, they would never experience any technical problems ever again.

Mercedes are pushing the envelope hard on the PU side. They have far more horsepower than Honda, but in return they have some mild reliability problems.

[DR30]

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/99086/co ... razil.html

Getting more interesting.

[djones]

That Honda engine is annoyingly reliable.
If it goes to the end that's 8 races straight. Very impressive. It's been in from Russia.
That block must be made out of titanium. I kinda waiting to see if even the slightest of issue happens to any of their units.

Mercedes have a lot of work to do to create a similarly bullet proof engine next year. And they dont have an aircraft division to take materials and turbine knowledge from.
This year's unit has worn out like paper straw in a hot beverage.

If Mercedes ran their engines at the same power output Honda do, they would never experience any technical problems ever again.

Mercedes are pushing the envelope hard on the PU side. They have far more horsepower than Honda, but in return they have some mild reliability problems.

Totally agree. Was it not for the rule changes designed to hinder the Mercedes aero concept you can bet their engines would have been running nowhere near as hard. They have been having to compensate for compromised aero.

[dans79]

They team sounds encouraged by what they learned/accomplished in brazil!

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/merce ... f/6791784/

“The impact on the championship [of Brazil], the fact that we have got that penalty out of the way and managed to outscore Max and outscore Red Bull gives us a lot of confidence,” Shovlin said.

“The fact that we have managed to get the car to work well on a track that is aggressive on the rear tyres in hot conditions gives us a lot of confidence.

“So I think for us the championship, coming out of Mexico, we had hope that we could win them both.

“Now I think it is moving to belief that we can win them both. And we will we working very hard to ensure that we can do that.”

[zibby43]

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/99086/co ... razil.html

Getting more interesting.

GP Blog is not a reliable source. It’s a tabloid rag. Reading the article just confirms why.

Retired McLaren mechanic Marc Priestley already looked at the Merc steering column video, and said it was simply a matter of the forces that the car/driver encounter under braking.

On a side note, here’s a podcast that features an in-depth interview with Shovlin, why Merc took a 5th PU, etc:

Interview starts at about 15ish minutes in: