Category Archives: F1 News

Both Mercedes drivers were hit by an unexpected overheating problem with the Motor Generator Unit (Kinetic) in Canada, and it was just bad luck that saw Lewis Hamilton retire while Nico Rosberg was able to carry on.

The problems arose around the time of the second stops, just as Hamilton passed Rosberg for the lead. It was the time spent at rest in the pit lane – with no cooling air going through the system – that tipped Hamilton over the edge and led to his retirement.

Rosberg was forced to run the remainder of the race without the benefit of power derived from recovered braking energy.

“We had a failure of the engine control systems on the ERS, on the MGU-K,” said Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff. “We had a peak in temperatures. They had exactly the same power units and they were racing at exactly the same pace and had exactly the same temperatures. In that particular part of the MGU-K we saw temperatures which were higher than expected, but we weren’t aware that they could have such a detrimental effect. The MGU-K just shut down, and we couldn’t reset it.

“We are keeping all those temperatures under observation, and we know where we are critical and where it’s important. In that case it was something that we didn’t spot before. It’s just another part which we have to analyse and understand, and I guess this can happen. The consequence was obviously detrimental to the whole car, to the brakes.

“We told both drivers to manage the brakes, because when you lose the electric motor, you lose the electric braking. The brakes were overheating massively, so we changed the balance within the braking system, and told them to be more careful. It’s what both of them did, both of them complied to exactly what they’ve been told. It’s very marginal – Lewis entered into the pits, the car is static, the temperatures rise, and when he went out the pedal just went soft and then fell down completely. On Nico’s car he was lucky not to have that.”

Wolff was full of praise for Rosberg’s efforts: “It was really damage limitation for him, so what a drive.”

Red Bull has put a stop to speculation about Ferrari’s interest in Adrian Newey by confirming that he will be with the company for the long haul.

Intriguingly he will get involved in some new projects, and it’s apparent that he will be taking a step back from his current F1 duties.

A statement said: “Red Bull is pleased to confirm that it has extended its successful relationship with Adrian Newey with a new multi-year agreement.

“As part of this new agreement, Adrian will work on new Red Bull Technology projects, as well as advising and mentoring Infiniti Red Bull Racing as it develops its Formula One cars over the next few seasons. The details of the new projects will be announced in due course.”

Nico Rosberg was satisfied with his first day of work in Montreal, despite losing out to Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton on overall times.

Rosberg was 0.175s down on Hamilton at the end of FP2 at a circuit where the Briton has won three times.

“I’m very satisfied, it was a great day really today,” he said. “The track was great, consistent conditions, I felt happy with the car. Of course there’s still work to do, but I generally felt comfortable in the car. It was a really good day, and also for me it was a pleasure to drive the car.

“Some good long runs, we have some good pace here, so it’s looking very promising. We were expecting to be strong at this track, and it seems to look like that at the moment. So it’s all going the right way.”

Rosberg said that keeping the supersoft tyre alive will be important, although it remains to be seen to what extent.

“Strategy will be important, definitely. There was quite a lot of tyre degradation. But then again I think there’s not that much flexibility with the strategy, so even if you do make your tyres last longer I’m not sure you can really make a big difference there. We’ll wait and see now. Now they’re going to measure the tyres and see how much rubber is still on them. They have five different points where they measure, and each point they have a look, and then they judge how many laps I could have done in theory.”

Meanwhile Rosberg has not been entirely comfortable with his brakes this year, but at a track where they play such a big role, he was a little happier.

“It’s going to take a lot of time to get on top of that, because it takes a long time to make changes and produce new brakes, like four months or something. But in general today it was a positive day on that front. I’m not sure why, but I felt more comfortable with them, which was nice. We tried something different with them this morning, but that didn’t work. This afternoon was a lot better.”