Mercedes admits 'fundamental' cooling flaw
A "fundamental" car design flaw cost Mercedes its chance of winning a ninth consecutive win of 2019 in Austria. That is the admission of the otherwise dominant team's trackside engineering boss Andrew Shovlin.
The team admitted after the race at the Red Bull Ring, which was won by Max Verstappen, that the 2019 Mercedes does not have big enough radiators.
Shovlin explained: "It all really goes down to the fundamental design of the car."
He said because engineers wanted the packaging of the 2019 car to be "very, very tight", it is not good enough at cooling the engines when ambient temperatures are high.
"Fundamentally the car doesn't have big enough radiators," said Shovlin.
And team boss Toto Wolff said the Mercedes drivers, including championship leader Lewis Hamilton, could have more issues at forthcoming races in the summer.
Shovlin continued: "When you get to that point you are really limited in your options."
Hamilton and teammate Valtteri Bottas said they used the "lift and coast" method to cool the engine in Austria, which meant Red Bull and Ferrari were faster.
"So we couldn't really race properly, attack or defend. It felt a bit like a survival game in the end," said Shovlin.
He said designers are therefore "working on systems" to improve the situation for other hot races this year.
"We've got a lot of projects looking at this particular issue with the cooling, how we can improve that," said Shovlin.
Here you can see the video in which Shovlin explaines the problem: Mercedes 2019 Austrian Grand Prix F1 Debrief
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See no stupid conspiracy theory spouted about by some posters on this website (see ‘Hamilton urged reporters to chill’ thread on 3/7)
Labeling those that disagree with you as stupid merely enforces what you call "conspiracy theory."
Lot of people do not believe in conspiracy theories, but do believe in conspiracies. The two are distinctly different issues, but I wouldn't expect you to understand that.
Usual lies from you Simon, never said the posters were stupid just their theories. Although with you I might make the exception
Thank you for the offer, but I prefer to pay my own way.
I would, though, welcome pointing out people who demonstrably are not stupid, but hold onto stupid theories.
Another "Pot/Kettle Black" post from Mr. Saivil. Tells the poster not to call people stupid and then implies exactly that of the poster. Lol !.............Hypocritical but funny all the same. Personally I thought OK thens' post was absolute fair comment but then it was about the Silver car.
Good morning BlackDog,
True to yourself, you are good at reading what I did NOT post. We've been down that path before.
Have a nice day!
Simon get back in your box, JACK!! Please stop coming out and spoiling my day!!
Hello Pam,
How are you doing, old girl?
You are so easy to get to!? Who would've ever thunk, as we say in the Appalachia.
Such a pissant excuse..radiator problems..pffft! Next it'll be the drivers seat, we all know that Mercedes only loses when they're told to.
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