F1 power unit struggle continues

I think everyone who witnessed last Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix will be thankful that Romain Grosjean came away with minimal injuries from the horrific crash that ripped his Haas in two and ruptured its fuel bladders, to create an instant fireball. Prompt action by the safety car and marshals assisted the Frenchman to flee the fire,

Also, seeing the wreckage and realizing he could extricate himself from the safety cell was testament to the incredible technology improving the safety of F1 drivers, particularly the halo which certainly proved its worth. We wish him a speedy recovery.

It was not a great weekend for Racing Point either, when Lance Stroll ended upside down after an incident with Alpha Tauri’s Daniil Kvyat. Fortunately the Canadian was able to climb out unscathed, Kvyat received a penalty for causing the accident. Then it was the turn of Sergio Perez whose great drive put him in line for a good points finish until an MGU-K failure ended his race three laps from the end.

The teams are still in Bahrain for this weekend’s Sakhir Grand Prix, but this time it is the circuit’s outer track, which at 3.543 km is 1.869 km shorter than last Sunday’s Bahrain International Grand Prix. Consequently drivers now face 87 laps for a total of 307.99 km. The race for third spot in the Constructors’ title will be hotter than ever as Racing Point’s woes were McLaren’s bonus, as a good finish from both Norris and Sainz moved them ahead by 17 points.

At the time of writing there was no word from Dr Helmut Marko regarding the power unit situation for Red Bull and Alpha Tauri. Will it be a buy-out of the Honda IPO, a return to Renault power or good bye to the Milton Keynes organisation? If the team takes over the manufacture of the Honda power unit, they are demanding a freeze on development from all other power unit suppliers.

Not everyone is happy about that, Renault and Ferrari being the most vocal. Renault is seeking the introduction of a new formula a year ahead of schedule, whereas Ferrari is out to see a convergence of performance, in other words equalizing all the power units’ output. This has not gone down well with Mercedes chief Toto Wolff.

The Austrian is quoted as saying. “This would be the beginning of the end.” He added that some have requested this move and he considered this “a bit of an insult”. “When you look at the last three years and the development of the performance of the engines, Ferrari was clearly the most powerful engine in 2018 and by far the best in 2019.

“We developed our engine and continued to push the boundaries and brought something to the track in 2020 that we were hoping would catch up.” Wolff continued.

“That is why I cannot comprehend that any car manufacturer that trusts in his ability to develop a power unit and a chassis would want some kind of mechanism that would balance the power unit result. I don’t think that anybody would accept such a humiliation in public.”

From his experience he found such a convergence concept results in even greater issues and said. “Formula 1 must stay very, very far away from that, or we end up like GT racing where you design power units for the sole topic of manipulating the system.”

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