Mercedes F1 finished third behind Red Bull and Ferrari in the 2022 Constructors’ Championship. The new-generation F1 car, the W13, never shined, revealing itself to be the wrong single-seater, with extreme chassis and aerodynamic choices gone awry.
Mercedes’ F1 power unit, the M13 E Performance, also looked less competitive than usual, but showed its worth with a 1-2 finish at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
We are confident that we have a competitive unit in the Mercedes F1 engine division at Brixworth and we want to prove it in 2023.
Mercedes F1 finished its first season with ground effect cars in third place behind Red Bull Racing and Ferrari in the Constructors’ Championship. After winning eight Constructors’ titles since 2014, the team managed just one victory in the 22 races held for the first time since the start of the hybrid era.
Mercedes F1 M13E Performance is the only driver with customer teams Aston Martin and Williams not penalized in the championship, Mercedes F1 with George Russell and Lewis Hamilton with eight and Red Bull with Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez. It reached 10 and Ferrari had 12 with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.
Brixworth engineers, led by Haywell Thomas, seem to have lost the title of the most powerful engine they have been proud of for many years.
The F1 M13E Performance did not give the impression of being the most competitive unit in the 2022 season, but defending the staff at Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrain has been promoted to star’s CTO after James Allison. It must be stressed that it wasn’t as bad an engine as the single-seater W13 managed by technical director Mike Elliott.
According to the engineers, the F1 power unit was certainly better than the visible results. The W13 with zero pods was unable to run the track at the minimum height studied in the wind tunnel due to the detrimental effects of porpassing and suffered from bouncing.
Add to this negative aspect the high drag generated by the W13, and Mercedes could not match Red Bull’s top speed. At Brixworth, we are confident that the power unit, which will be homologated at the beginning of 2022 and frozen until 2025, will have the ability to match, if not beat, Honda’s F1 power unit, which won two consecutive F1 world championships. there is
Doubts are justified. Mercedes F1 shone again in two GPs where aero efficiency was less important on the high altitude tracks in Mexico (2,200 metres) and Brazil (over 700 metres). A strategic error caused a disappointing result in Mexico, but in the thin air at Interlagos, the Mercedes engine proved to lose less power than its rivals, a sensational win over George Russell and Lewis Hamilton. It rewarded the high-performance powertrain staff with a disappointing season that achieved an impressive 1-2.
Of course, the excellent hybrid system that has evolved with the times also contributed to the result.
Flixworth has shared an interesting image with the turbo and compressor separated by a shaft, with the MGU-H in the middle. An engine that utilizes a supercharging system to generate electricity, like Ferrari he runs at just over 100,000 rpm, seeking maximum efficiency, rather than maximizing performance in the matter of consumption. , to improve filling at low revs.
Mercedes has evolved a split-turbo layout since 2014, and over time the architecture has been copied by Honda (last year) and Renault (2022), but Ferrari has remained true to a more traditional scheme. there is
The same concept has evolved over time and has been continuously refined down to the last detail. By abandoning the W13 design philosophy, Brackley and his team should return to fighting Red Bull in his 2023 season.
Category: F1 / mercedes / honda f1