Mercedes F1 W09 EQ Power+
"Across the board, this design is more elegant than last year," said Allison. "Last year's regulations were brand new and we weren't quite sure which direction they would take us in. So last year's car had a certain amount of wiggle room to adapt if we had found that we needed to move around certain aspects of the car. This year, being a little more confident of what we're aiming for, we've been able to commit more fully to certain concepts. So we have the packaging much tighter and have taken things to more of an extreme."
The new power unit M09 EQ Power+ has been developed to meet substantial changes in the Sporting Regulations for the 2018 season. The reduction in the number of power unit components that can be used per driver per season without incurring grid penalties meant that durability had to be extended to withstand the higher distances the hardware now has to run.
"The amount of change on the power unit for this year is quite considerable and driven by a number of requirements," explained Andy Cowell. "The biggest challenge we've got is lifting our durability limit with the challenge of racing just three engines per driver per championship and two ERS systems. That's a 40 per cent increase in the distance that the hardware needs to do for this year compared with last year. We focussed on trying to increase the life of the hardware without losing performance."
In addition to the changes coming from the new Sporting Regulations, the team at High Performance Powertrains sought to improve the power unit in other areas as well.
"We also wanted to change the packaging of the power unit for the benefit of overall car performance," Cowell continued. "We've been working very closely with our colleagues in Brackley, trying to understand the best overall integration in the chassis, the transmission and the aerodynamic surfaces. We've also been working on combustion efficiency and hardware friction reduction in partnership with Petronas."
