Mercedes F1 has revealed the impact on the F1 power unit when the 2022 F1 machine bounced, saying it damaged the engine.
In the early stages of the 2022 F1 season, Mercedes F1 had an excessive porpassing problem with the W13 banging heavily on the straights.
With ground effect making a comeback this year, F1 teams have tried to run their cars as close to the ground as possible to generate as much downforce as possible.
Porpassing has been a headache for Mercedes F1, failing to compete consistently at the front of the field for the first time in the turbo-hybrid era.
Furthermore, according to F1 team principal Toto Wolff, the fact that the development of the F1 power unit was frozen just before the start of the season only complicated how to deal with the bouncing situation.
“We had some wobbles with the power unit at the beginning of the season. I didn’t like certain aspects of the power unit deployment and drivability,” said Wolff.
“While we were in a frozen environment, Hywel Thomas and the team really improved their performance and the team really improved their performance and were able to deal with the difficult environment of a bouncing car that breaks the engine. It was very reliable.”
“From the middle to the end of the season, the performance of the engine was good.”
Mercedes F1 has maintained high reliability throughout the season, and the only major failure during the race was Lewis Hamilton’s machine at the final F1 Abu Dhabi GP.
Thomas said maintaining engine reliability was a priority for the team. This was a different line of thinking than Ferrari, who claimed to prefer fast but unreliable cars.
Hywel Thomas has echoed Toto Vorg’s comments about the harm done to F1 engines by bouncing.
“I remember coming back from Bahrain and saying, ‘How are you going to do this? How are you going to put the performance in the car from our side?'” said Hywel Thomas.
“It was like, ‘Look, we’re going to have to make a profit on a small scale.’ At the same time, reliability cannot be compromised.”
“By that time in the season it became clear that the engine was banging hard.”
“When Toto Wolff came to Brixworth and saw some of the parts off the race engine, he was very surprised to see exactly how hard the bottom of the engine was hitting the ground.
“I think Lewis and George (Russell) looked a bit uncomfortable getting out of the car, but the PU was pretty much the same.”
