Mercedes looks for answers to its overheating issue
Mercedes winning streak ends Small radiators to blame
LEWIS Hamilton and Mercedes are looking for answers following an Austrian Grand Prix that saw the team failing to win for the first time so far this year. Valtteri Bottas came home third and Hamilton was fifth after picking up a grid penalty during qualifying and suffering front wing damage in the race.
Afterwards, Mercedes admitted it had struggled in the hot weather experienced at the Red Bull Ring, with boss Toto Wolff describing it as the squad’s Achilles heel.
Both cars were running in their maximum cooling set-up during the event, and the team said that both Hamilton and Bottas had to ‘lift and coast’ extensively to keep the temperatures under control.
“We have been carrying the problem since the beginning of the season,” Wolff told the media. “We have tried to work on mitigating the performance loss, but at the end, it was really painful to watch, cruising and not being able to defend or attack.”
Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin went into further detail about the problem in a video posted on the team’s website after the race.
“Fundamentally the car doesn’t have big enough radiators,” he said. “And that’s something that we were a bit optimistic with how much we could get out of the system.
“It has under-delivered and this has meant that we are carrying this issue where in the very hot races we will be struggling to keep everything [in the car] cool enough for the duration.”
“You can also turn the engine down a bit, then it will generate less heat,” he added, “but you’ve got less power and you’re slower on straights. It was a significant limitation in Austria.” Wolff said that the team was aware of the issue before Austria and is already working on a solution – but the problem is down to the fundamental nature of its 2019 car design.
After the Austrian GP, Hamilton and Bottas were leading the driver’s championship, well ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
“Mercedes struggled in the hot weather at the Red Bull Ring; Wolff described it as the squad’s Achilles heel”