Hamilton hopes reliability doesn’t become a factor
Lewis Hamilton is hoping that reliability doesn’t become a defining factor in this year’s world championship, saying the current engine regulations are too harsh.
The four times champion came close to an engine failure in Montreal after his power unit overheated and experienced power dropouts during its seventh grand prix weekend of the season.
Drivers have to make three engines last 21 races this year as part of regulations designed to save costs and are hit with grid penalties if they exceed their quota. Hamilton is concerned that the growing amount of money being spent on R&D to improve reliability will only have a negative impact.
He told ESPN, “The fact that a season can sway through reliability, I don’t think anyone wants to see that. I don’t think anyone wants to be cheated of that. You want actual true performance.
“The sport is going in the wrong direction in my opinion. I have so many different opinions about it. They needed to fricking change these bleeding engines to save costs and then they spend more to produce it.”
Hamilton will move onto his second power unit for Le Casste next weekend after the upgrade was delayed because of reliability concerns. On Sunday, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said he couldn’t be 100 percent certain the upgrade would be ready but said it was the team’s goal to bring it to France.
Renault signs Mercedes engine integration boss
Renault has announced that Mercedes head of powertrain integration Matthew Harman will join the French manufacturer as its new deputy chief designer.
Harman has been at Mercedes for over seventeen years and joined the engine division in 2001 as a team leader. He then joined the powertrain integration team in 2011.
Renaults been pushing forward with there investment and recruitment in recent years, Harman will be expected to bring knowledge of how the German manufacturers’ engine, transmission are integrated.
Cyril Abiteboul, managing director of Renault’s F1 project, said: “Over the past three years Bob Bell has been leading the charge for the team to reinforce its technical line-up.”
“We are delighted to have attracted someone of Matthew’s calibre to enable the team to anticipate on the design cycle of future cars. A crucial benefit, something we are currently missing since the team’s acquisition and that will become even more important with the upcoming changes planned for 2021.”
Harman will assist Renault’s chief designer Martin Tolliday in the design of future cars.
Mercedes reviles it ran power unit same as Melbourne
Mercedes says it ran the engines in Montreal as they were run at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.
The German manufacturer is the only manufacturer to have run the same engines in its works and customer cars for the whole of 2018 thus far, after plans for the introduction of an upgrade for Canada were postponed due to reliability issues on the dyno.
Mercedes had planned to bring the upgrade to Canada as it is a circuit requires lots of power and make the engine work hard. The plan had been to reuse the old unit in Budapest, which is less demanding on the engine.
Chief strategist James Vowles says that did not make a difference to how hard Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton were able to push them. In the teams Pure Pitwall debrief, Vowels said they both drove the power unit as they did in Australia.
Saying “There was no additional management, no additional switches, or modes or turn-downs, we were effectively using the power unit to its full benefit.”
“What happened with Lewis was an entirely unrelated chassis cooling event, nothing to do with the engine itself. And you saw with Valtteri he was able to use it with good effect, second in qualifying and maintaining that second in the race.”
Speaking about Hamilton’s issues with overheating in the first stint he said it was a cooling issue, which the team tried to resolve by the Englishman completing changes to his car and adapting his driving style.
Vowels added the change made in the pits – when two mechanics adjusted the cooling inlet louvres on either side of the cockpit [pictured above] – worked.
“We knew that we had various elements in our cooling configuration that are removable,” he said.
“There are two losses here, the first is that during a pit stop itself you’re asking the guys to do a fairly complex job in a short space of time.
Alonso future depends on the direction of F1
Fernando Alonso says his future in Formula One will depend on what direction the sport takes in the coming years and whether the focus will be placed back on drivers.
The two times champion has finish runner-up three times since winning his last title in 2006, with his career being hindered by poor decisions and missed opportunities. That means he has only managed to be runner up three times.
Since returning to McLaren at the start of the hybrid era in 2014, the Spaniard has not been on the podium or higher than sixth in the championship. he last fought for a title in 2012, when he missed out by three points while driving for Ferrari.
Despite that, he claimed he hasn’t had a title winning car since finishing third with McLaren in 2007, when he and Lewis Hamilton both lost the title by a single point.
Asked by ESPN, how much longer he could continue without fighting for victories, he said “I think the last possibility of the last championship car we had was 2007. The rest has been always quite far off from the performance of the top and the winning team of that season.”
“We’re now 11 years after that moment, so I don’t think it’s a problem [for me to be off the pace] but I think the biggest thing for me is to think about the direction Formula One is going and I don’t think too much about how competitive we’ll be next year as it is impossible to predict.”
He said he doesn’t feel he deserves any more championships but admits he could have won more. Alonso says he feels extremely privileged to have been in the sport for eighteen years.
Automated chequered flag under consideration
FIA race director Charlie Whiting has suggested that the sport could introduce an automated chequered flag system, following the controversy at the Canadian Grand Prix.
The model Winnie Harlow waved the flag on lap sixty-nine, after a local official miscalculated and told her it was the last lap. The results subsequently went back a further lap to the end of lap 68, robbing Daniel Ricciardo of his fastest lap.
However, its not the first time that this has happened, the footballer Pele once waved the flag too late and the Chinese Grand Prix also saw the flag waved too early.
In cases such as Montreal, there are also important safety considerations, as marshals could go onto the track believing that the race was over and that drivers are cruising, when they have been told to race on by their teams.
Whiting said that is considering having the official signal for the end of the race shown on the light boards above the start/finish line, which would override any issues with the actual flag.
He told Motorsport.com “I think we’d need to probably think about having a better end of race signal. The chequered flag is traditional, but it’s something that, as we’ve seen today, is prone to mistakes”
“You could, and it would be quite straightforward for us, make the big black panel that you see show a chequered flag at the appropriate time.”
But he also says automation wasn’t completely straightforward and drivers would need to look at a light board. He also said there was no plans to stop the F1 organisation designating VIPs to wave the flag.
