•"630 grams can change the fate of the Mercedes PU" !!!
Translated from Portugese to English
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https://www.autoracing.com.br/exclus...a-up-mercedes/
630 grams. That could be a magical weight for the Mercedes' combustion engine.
I explain. Since the British GP at Silverstone, the Silvers have looked at the maps ready for each circuit at the end of the season.
And because of the great performances from Red Bull and Honda, Mercedes has remade its engine mappings, making them much more aggressive. The mappings of PU's , introduced from 2014 onwards are incomparably more complex than before, because the combustion engine has to work in perfect harmony not only with the turbo, but also with the MGU-K, MGU-H, which are for sometimes they send electrical energy to the batteries which, via the electronic control unit, return all this to the car in the form of power controlled by the mapping.
All this has to work like a link in direct current and is done via extremely advanced software. When a link in this "chain" is a problem, the entire chain is damaged by this weaker "link".
In the case of the Mercedes PU, since the mappings were changed, the combustion engine became the weakest link, as the temperature and pressure increased and this started to cause micro-leaks that increased over time. Each time in a different place on the ICE (combustion engine).
This meant that all Mercedes drivers using the new mappings had problems with their PU's , so they had to change them before the scheduled deadline, in addition to practically not feeling the effect the more aggressive mappings would have.
Because micro-leaks occurred in various places in the ICE, Mercedes decided to replace all gaskets, screws, nuts, clamps, pipes, hoses and everything that connects the different parts of the ICE with stronger and/or different materials. The Mercedes ICE (PU) is 630 grams heavier, an irrelevant weight gain if the problem was/is solved.
Valtteri Bottas was the "guinea pig" in this effort to solve the problem in Russia. Mercedes changed its PU there not for race strategy, but for engine strategy, to see if what they did would work in practice. Toto Wolff even said it in a "mysterious" way that weekend...
Immediately after the Russian GP, •11 engineers from the Brixworth factory, where Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains engines are manufactured, went with some equipment directly to the team's Bracley factory to test and validate all the parameters of the PU that Bottas used to measure in free practice for the Russian GP and the one he wore on the Sunday of the race was 630 grams heavier.
No micro-leaks were found in Bottas PU used in the Russian race and all measurements were within the standard they consider to be correct.
Therefore, Mercedes has decided to change only Hamilton ICE in Turkey and not the whole PU.
Tomorrow, Tuesday, the same engineers who thoroughly inspected the PU from Bottas last week will be back in Bracley to begin overhauling the PU from Bottas - now with two races - and the one Hamilton used in Turkey.
If everything is in order, the team will continue to use the revised mappings, otherwise they will revert to the "original" mappings, which are much less aggressive.
Adauto Silva
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