Quote:
Originally Posted by Ventruck
I'm pulling for Max, and in all fairness I felt like the grid was making way for him as well when he had to start back in Turkey(?).
The engine is a real eyebrow raiser for me. Mercedes was down 40 seconds to RB in Mexico, now they could gain how many places and finish ahead by 10 seconds. Makes me wonder how fast these things degrade to the point a fresh unit warrants such a difference in performance.
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The AMG PU is notorious for not performing well at extreme altitudes. They made strides to improve it, but the Honda turbos perform better in that environment. I think it is related to how their compressors don't need to spin as fast to make good power at lower altitudes, which gives them room to increase turbine speeds.
On top of that, Mercedes has always had an extreme advantage with a new power unit, but Bottas could not take advantage of it before. Now the next part is speculation: it is possible now Mercedes has fixed their reliability problem, they are now able to run the engines at a higher power output. I believe the ICE that was fitted to Lewis’s car was the first one with the new fix (maybe it’s Valtteri's current engine). Combine that with the aero efficiency gains from the collapsible suspension, you get the straight-line speed we saw this weekend. I think there will be some drop in performance as the races go on, but no one knows if that’s the case now the ICE fix is in place.
In short, I think it has more to do with them now being able to run the power unit at a more aggressive level. As long as they select the same mode for qualifying and the race, it is legal.