Mercedes’ “Unanswered Mystery” From Bahrain Still Not Solved for Saudi Arabia: James Allison

How much did the engine issue at the 2024 season opener in Bahrain cost Mercedes? Could George Russell have put his W15 on the final podium place ahead of Carlos Sainz? After a promising pre-season test, Mercedes was quite confident that they had made a big step in the right direction with their new car. Russell proved it to be the case by qualifying in third place, but more importantly, only three-tenths away from Max Verstappen. He even gained a position in the opening laps by overtaking Charles Leclerc to claim 2nd. However, the excitement was short-lived as both the Mercedes drivers started having engine issues that affected their cars throughout the race. What’s worse is that Mercedes hasn’t gotten down to the bottom of it just yet, according to James Allison.

A power unit issue stemming from a cooling miscalculation hindered Russell’s strong start. Despite a stable performance leading up to the race, the team had to adjust cooling levels aggressively during the race, impacting performance significantly. This forced Russell to adopt cautious driving techniques to manage the temperatures, resulting in a reported lap time loss of over half a second per lap.

Mercedes hasn’t fixed the cooling issue for Jeddah yet

During a post-race interview, George Russell described how he encountered alarming warnings on his steering wheel quite early on in the race, indicating a drained battery and engine power loss. He expressed regret that the team couldn’t fully show the car’s potential due to these issues.

The cooling miscalculation was attributed to Mercedes opting for a more aggressive cooling setup, hoping to gain an advantage. However, the decision proved to be costly as it led to excessive engine overheating. James Allison recently shed light on the issue during a race debrief clip shared on YouTube by Mercedes. Answering a fan’s question about the overheating issue, Allison said, “That was actually the biggest unanswered mystery from the weekend. We were substantially hotter in the race than we expected to be. While it’s always something of a gamble choosing your cooling level for a given race weekend… this particular weekend was one of the weekends where we had to make the fewest guesses possible and the fewest corrections.”

The 56-year-old added, “We’d already run this cooling level loads of times in winter testing, we’d already run these power levels in winter testing as well as free practice… The fact that we got it wrong by more than 1 or 2° is extremely unusual and quite punishing because once the cars are above the limit… we just have to back off the car, we have to back off the throttle at the end of the straights, we have to turn down some of the modes of the engine – and it just ruins your race effectively. So it isn’t solved yet.”

It’s not the end of the world scenario for Mercedes. They have consistently talked about having a good platform to build from with the W15, and Toto Wolff is optimistic about the future races.

Toto Wolff’s game plan for Saudi Arabia

Wolff mentioned that the cooling problems hindered the team from showcasing their capabilities fully and described the Bahrain race as “underwhelming.” Looking ahead to the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Wolff expressed optimism about the opportunity to learn more about the car and improve performance on the Jeddah street circuit.

“We’ve got an opportunity to take a step forward immediately,” said Wolff as per Sports Illustrated. “Jeddah is a street track with a lot of high-speed content. It will be good to continue our learning with the new car on a very different circuit to Bahrain. We will be aiming for a more consistent weekend and to understand our true performance relative to the rest of the grid.“ If Mercedes wants to extract the full potential of the W15, they need to make sure they have fixed the cooling issue before they head to qualifying tomorrow night at Jeddah.

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Will Mercedes be closer to Ferrari in Saudi Arabia without the cooling issue? What are your thoughts and predictions?