for a while yesterday it looked like Merhi was going to score a point through attrition and overhaul alonso in the WDC, now that would have been amateurish.
It wasn't just a fresh engine for the race though, Alonso had run free practice and quali with it, so it's harder to draw the line. If the rule was more open to interpretation, you'd realistically have to allow a free change after every accident, because proving the degree of damage was sufficient would be a nightmare.
Realistically in this situation I have doubts that Alonso's PU was even damaged in the crash. Yes it probably was but given Honda's record they'd probably take any excuse to get a fresh motor in the the thing.
Haa anyone got a breakdown of what their actual problems are? Originally it seemed that they turned the power down in early season to make it reliable. However they havent really looked good at any point. Have they ever turned the engine up? Are they lacking in the ERS Department? Is it overheating?? Does it simply lack grunt? Does the layout just not work? I simply don't know where to begin with them.
I seem to remember they had turned the power up a little but for the Austria race last weekend I heard that they had turned the PU DOWN to Melbourne level!!!!! Must admit I would love to know more details of the actual problem, although I suspect they have many problems.
They're running some sort of inline turbo I believe, an axial flow compressor is the technical name I think. Rather than using a traditional turbo (a large centrifugal fan) they've used several smaller fans along a shaft, smaller fans mean a quick spinning up time (which seems unneeded with MGU assistance) with the loss of maximum achievable boost, although I'm sure they're still able to get amble boost. I think the main reason they went along this path is simple size, a more compact design allowing them to shrink the bodywork etc. If I recall they've also got a odd ERS setup, the ERS in front of the ICE with the battery and control electronics all packaged together. Again this will make things smaller but thats going to be a hell of a heat source to deal with. It seems their problems are the result of trying to be to compact, yes it's good for aero but in the end you'll need holes all over the place and so any gain will soon be lost. The ERS is going to need mammoth cooling and they've just shoehorned it into a tiny space with almost no way of cooling it. All this turning down of the unit is for heat issues I assume.
I think you are right about the turbo being different. That might come and bite them if next year they increase the revs and thus power output as they will be pushing the boost. As for cooling they are taking a different approach to resolving the issue. As you said they could just cut holes and cool that way. They just seem to keep limiting the power to reduce temps but that just makes them look very bad. At least if they cut holes they might be faster then they are. Very frustrating not knowing what is happening.
thanks for the above BLS, Don't know if anybody else thought of this but that was quite a violent double side impact on Alonso. More violent than say......The wind blowing him into a wall
Not quite, in a interesting turn of events for Kimi there are growing rumours that there was a coming together with Alonso before he started to spear off track. What I can only assume is a Kimi fan has also made a somewhat assumptious video
All credibility in that video was lost when he puts up "and then we have a good point by Villeneuve".
