Mercedes emerged as the third force in the first Grand Prix of the 2024 Formula 1 season held last weekend in Sakhir. It was for performances, of course, but also for errors that jeopardized the final result.
Russell, after an excellent start which had seen him even climb to second position having overtaken Charles Leclerc, had to use a less powerful engine map due to his power unit overheating.
The British driver himself told Sky Sport F1 at the end of the race: “The engine was overheating and we didn't really understand why. As soon as we overtook Leclerc I had lots of alarms on the steering wheel dashboard. We had to reduce the power with the engine and this cost us several tenths per lap.”
“Lowering the engine power compromised our race. Maybe we could have fought with Sainz for the podium, but I'm not so sure. Today we definitely did something wrong.”
A few hours later Russell himself went into more detail about the problem that held him back from the first stint of the race, the one done on Soft tyres. The team, in fact, made a mistake in measuring the closure of the bodywork.
George Russell, Mercedes F1 W15
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
A mistake, that of Mercedes, made to try to have the best possible performance by taking advantage of the closed bodywork, therefore better aerodynamics, also considering the low air and asphalt temperatures in which the race was held in Sakhir last Saturday.
The bodywork turned out to be too closed, with the temperatures of the German V6 rising after the first overtaking and remaining quite high, so much so that Russell was forced to choose a more conservative mapping to try to dissipate the heat that didn't want to leave the W15 number 63.
“The engine overheated from the end of the third lap. As soon as I overtook Leclerc I had alarms on the steering wheel and we were forced to reduce the engine power. We were unable to show the real potential of the car. We were also forced to do further lift and coast and this had an effect on the tyres.”
“The problem was simply that our bodywork was too closed. We need to understand why things went wrong. A small change would probably have been enough, maybe it wouldn't have affected our lap time so much by opening the bodywork more. But we certainly wouldn't have had these big problems. Maybe we were too aggressive.”
Putting a remedy to the situation that arose in Sakhir shouldn't be a problem: just be less aggressive in closing the bodywork, allowing the power units to breathe more. At that point, however, a further question arises. If the W15s had an overheating crisis in a grand prix held in low temperatures, what could happen in grands prix where the temperatures will be decidedly higher?
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