2018 Season - Mercedes knocking on the door of 1000hp Engine

I hope they don't dominate again please tell me others have similar HP gains
http://www.planetf1.com/news/mercedes-close-to-engine-breakthrough/

 

Kind of weird to say that in a time where power levels are guarded. I'm going to assume if they say they are close to 1,000hp then they probably already make more than that.

 

Yes they are boosting kind of early

 

I think that they are trying to psych out the competition and trick them into going hyper stupid with there up grades and have a rash of failures.

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Some said that Mercedes had around 1000hp already in 2016, so I guess that now everybody (well, maybe not Honda) has more than that.

 

makes sense

 

Nice. So this confirms I don't need to watch the 2018 F1 season as the result is already known.

 

I think they said it just to bug Ferrari fans...get us to create a thread about it.

 

Most watch just to see how the rest get on, I for one only have interest in the ferraris, couldn’t care less where anyone else finishes and have no expectations of championships until the rules are amended to take away Mercedes built in cheats.

 

I see the sower grapes are bountiful today...

Keep the faith. Ferrari will make a step next year, no question. So will Renault.

Here’s fact. The longer there is formula stability, the more performance of the top team converge to the optimal. I am fully expecting a tighter race for the title in 2018 and we know that Ham cracks under intense competitive pressure. Bring it on!

 

I'm with you on most of this but who is going to give competition to Hamilton? 2017 proved that it was Vettel who cracks under pressure..badly. Hamilton drove pretty well this year for the most part. The #2 driver isn't great either. Ferrari should be concerned about their long-term viability with current driver line up.

 

Kimi will be replaced with either Ricciardo or Leclerc in 2019 IMO.

 

I hope it's Ricciardo. An inexperienced driver at Ferrari would quickly be relegated to a support role. 3 drivers in WDC contention would be more fun to watch, but I'm sure Marchionne will go for the cheaper option.

 

I'm not so sure. Ferrari tends to pay-up for driving talent--over pay in some cases.

 

I remember that too, but can't find those stories. Any ideas?

 

Last year they were "closing in on" 1000 HP, maybe 50 shy (in qualifying trim).
So this reported breaktrough is at the 5% level which generally translates to DIV 3 gains on the track 5%/3 = 1.6% faster lap times.

 

Renault made big gains as well. And that was with the entire season Renault not able to get their 2017 spec turbo to work. Red Bull had to machine components for Renault to fit the 2016 turbo, and their MGU was a mess, yet they still made gains. I remain hopeful for Renault

 

Depends on how good leclerc really is, look at what max did against ricci! If he's quicker than seb, no one will make him go slower....

 

That's the spirit!

 

^^^ This.

 

I thought they were already there?

 

Well to be fair Vettel had to work with less. Their car wasn't as good and he needed to take more risks than Hamilton did. It's easy to remain calm when you have the best car year after year after year. Vettel's only real bonehead move was Baku. The Singpore start was a racing incident and he can't help it if the car kept breaking the second half. Again that was down to Ferrari pushing too hard trying to catch a faster car...

 

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/133660/mercedes-aimed-for-90%25-car-in-2017 - This plus more power.....I hope Ferrari are working over the holidays

Mercedes aimed to produce what it has described as "a 90% car" for the 2017 Formula 1 season, as it was the first year of a new set of technical regulations.

The dominant team of the V6 hybrid engine era managed to win the drivers' and constructors' championship double for the fourth year running, but it admits that it did not want to aim too high with its first car built to the new rules.

Speaking exclusively to F1 Racing magazine about the Mercedes W08, chief designer John Owen said the car had more flexibility factored into its design than the previous year's W07.

"I set the objective to build a 90% car for 2017," said Owen.

"It might seem strange not to aim for 100%, but the problem you face in any new set of rules is that you can't be certain of the challenges you'll face along the way - how the rules evolve, whether the tyres behave differently from how you expected.

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"There's a lot of unknowns there, so you aim for a car that can cover as many different circumstances as possible, and accept that it might not be the pinnacle of optimisation.

"We built a lot of adjustment into the car, the capability to react to things we saw.

"Unfortunately, most of the things we had to adapt to we hadn't seen coming.

"So we carried a lot of compromise through the year for things that didn't need to be changed and we struggled a bit with those that did."

Owen added that greater optimisation of a car concept "tends to come in the second or third year of regulation stability", and that one late change the team faced on the eve of the season would have been far more problematic if it had happened the year before.

"What I mean [by a 90% car] is that it's quite spacious in places," he said.

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"The reason for that was to enable us to react during the design process and move things round.

"We didn't know where the aerodynamic development would take us, to some extent - what areas of the car we'd need to find more space on for aero performance, what areas were safe zones where you don't find any aero.

"If you can move things around in the car and not have to reinvent every part of it with every new development, it's quite wise.

"We did have a very late change to one aspect of the power unit, and because of our philosophy we could accommodate it reasonably well.

"If that had happened on our 2016 car it would literally have been a case of tearing up the design and starting again.

"It was nice to have that little bit of breathing space, whereas for the next car we can afford to be a lot more aggressive."

 

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/133793/mercedes-2018-engine-pretty-much-all-new

Mercedes' Formula 1 engine for the 2018 season will be "pretty much all new", according to its engine boss Andy Cowell.

Mercedes has been F1's benchmark since the turbo V6 hybrid rules were introduced in 2014 with the team winning four successive double world championships.

Ferrari provided a sterner challenge during this campaign, with Red Bull emerging as a strong threat in the closing stages of the season.

Mercedes is pushing on all fronts to maintain its advantage and is planning extensive updates to the engine.

"Pretty much all new," Cowell told Autosport regarding the expectations for next year's engine. "It is just because we're in the 20th race with this model.