Was the Mercedes power unit dominant?

[vorticism]

Yes, obviously.

[mendis]

Rumours had it that they had 150 hp over the nearest competitor! They surprised themselves after 3rd winter test in 2014. From then on, there were desperate attempts to hide it. On top, there was unlimited fuel burning, which was only understood by 2017.

[peewon]

In 2014, when the new engine regs came in, they were at least two years ahead of everyone. The key was the split turbo design that Diamler truck division had already been working on since 2011

https://www.espn.in/f1/story/_/id/14759 ... -get-right

Their PU was estimated to be anywhere between 50-70 HP more than everyone.

https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12472 ... m-the-edge

And now as everyone knows, Pady Lowe famously admitted they didnt even run their engines to full power in 2014 to avoid scrutiny.

https://f1i.com/news/403416-dominant-me ... %20in%20F1.

[mrluke]

For 2014? Yes. After that, not so much.

Where we had all the Mercedes customer teams at the top of the leaderboard it supports the dominant PU.

When that wasn't the case anymore it suggests that it wasn't the PU that was the cause of the dominance.

Mercedes had a dominant package definitely but I think it was more about their suspension and aero concepts than the PU itself.

[SiLo]

They stated they were very forward about it all being engine to hide how good the chassis and aero was. Also a reminder that back then the customer teams wouldn't have access to the same engine maps that the factory team did.

[Sevach]

Rumours had it that they had 150 hp over the nearest competitor! They surprised themselves after 3rd winter test in 2014. From then on, there were desperate attempts to hide it. On top, there was unlimited fuel burning, which was only understood by 2017.

150 is too much, the race (Canada) where Hamilton and Rosberg lost eletric power they where underpowered compared to a Red Bull-Renault.
Somewhere between 60 and 90 i can believe.

[mendis]

Rumours had it that they had 150 hp over the nearest competitor! They surprised themselves after 3rd winter test in 2014. From then on, there were desperate attempts to hide it. On top, there was unlimited fuel burning, which was only understood by 2017.

150 is too much, the race (Canada) where Hamilton and Rosberg lost eletric power they where underpowered compared to a Red Bull-Renault.
Somewhere between 60 and 90 i can believe.

As elsewhere pointed out, Rosberg lost the complete hybrid power, which was estimated to be around 160 bhp. He almost scraped home ahead of Riccardo. That's why I think it was legitimate. That's what I read back in the day.

[FW17]

Rumours had it that they had 150 hp over the nearest competitor! They surprised themselves after 3rd winter test in 2014. From then on, there were desperate attempts to hide it. On top, there was unlimited fuel burning, which was only understood by 2017.

150 is too much, the race (Canada) where Hamilton and Rosberg lost eletric power they where underpowered compared to a Red Bull-Renault.
Somewhere between 60 and 90 i can believe.

As elsewhere pointed out, Rosberg lost the complete hybrid power, which was estimated to be around 160 bhp. He almost scraped home ahead of Riccardo. That's why I think it was legitimate. That's what I read back in the day.

Rosberg was running on a front brake bias from mid-race. The rear had only 2 calipers compared to 3 conventionally as it took advantage of the MGUK. When the MGUK failed if they had loaded the rear brakes as normal, they would have failed as it did on Hamiltons.

Only reason Riccardo won that race was not because of having more power from engine, but due to Rosberg running such a compromised brake limited car.

[AR3-GP]

For 2014? Yes. After that, not so much.

Where we had all the Mercedes customer teams at the top of the leaderboard it supports the dominant PU.

When that wasn't the case anymore it suggests that it wasn't the PU that was the cause of the dominance.

Were you aware that Mercedes customer teams were not allowed to use the higher performance modes?

https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comme ... _100_sure/

Regarding the 2015 season, Former Lotus CEO:

During our cooperation, Mercedes managed the engine. They decided what mode you were going on, they could block driver changes on the steering wheel to protect the engine, too high temperatures, etc. "- said Carter. Asked if such a thing could still be possible, he replied: "At 100%. I have no doubt about it that they give other engine modes. When Romain won the podium for Spa [2015], Mercedes had to give him something more, because they did not want Vettel to overtake him and win the podium. And they admitted it after the race, they said why they did it. Romain came to me later and said: this car has never been so good. Because if you have a faster car, aero works better, you can heat your tires faster, you can brake later

[Hoffman900]

“In the first year of the regulations, to have such a new concept of car, with the powertrain frozen, that was not good", "of course we had a lot of frustation being behind Mercedes, both us and Renault were struggling. If we had a chance to introduce some performance modifications during the year, Mercedes would have still won anyway, but we could have made their lives a bit harder"”but we couldn't introduce anything for performance. It was very frustrating already having an engine that was much better on the dyno but not being able to use it because of the regulations. So it was very good that the FIA accepted the change of regulations at the end of 2014, allowing teams to use tokens for performance during the race season".
"I think the FIA did a great job of coordinating the input from different manufacturers. At the very beginning, I remember, Toyota, BMW, and Honda were also present and involved in the definition of the rules. People now claim the rules were designed for Mercedes but that is completely wrong"
"I remember that at the time, some decisions had to be based on the taking the safer route. We thought reliability would have played a major role in the season, but in the end that was not the case. By the time we got to Bahrain we realized the deficit, but there was not time to react because we were already building engines for the first race".
“So we were struggling to handle a racing season where the company was expecting you to succeed, while at the same time you were using the dynos to run the new concept. We paid the price for that in 2013, as we developed the new engine on just one dyno and a single-cylinder engine. The V8 and the new engine could not share the same dyno. It was only at the end of 2013 that were were able to use all our facilities for the new powertrain"... "the overlapping period needed to be done with more redundancy". "This was the approaching taken by Mercedes, which by mid-2013 had a skeleton team working on its V8 program."

- Luca Marmorini from Race Engine Technology Issue 100, Feb 2017

[fourmula1]

It was totally dominant. It was amazing. I actually loved seeing the two drivers duke it out and have a real rivalry even though it was 30 seconds ahead.

I didn't like Merc at the time but developed a ton of respect for the way they operated on race weekends, managed their drivers, and I felt they conduct themselves with a level of humility and humbleness even when at the top.

[PlatinumZealot]

Yes, obviously.

Reaaally?!!

This is sort of an obvious answer isnt it? It was dominant up to 2017/2018 ish.. And lost the power battle to Ferrari in 2019. In 2020 it was leading but not dominant. Being weak on high altitude tracks.

[Juzh]

Yes, obviously.

In 2020 it was leading but not dominant. Being weak on high altitude tracks.

There were no high altitude tracks in 2020 (corona year), only 2 austrian GPs where they mopped up easily. 2020 merc PU was dominant, with Ferrari a total train wreck (-15 kmh on straights compared to 2019) and actually renault of all engines was probably second best in power output or at worst level with honda, who as we know, got massively nerfed between cancelled 2020 australian gp and austrian gp, as new TD on engines got introduced by FIA. All this is known.

[AR3-GP]

For what it's worth, to me dominant does not equal bad. Maybe I'm a masochist, but I always found something interesting about F1 even in dominance periods.

[Jasonahathaway]

The Mercedes power unit has been dominant in Formula One in recent years, particularly between 2014 and 2021. During this period, Mercedes has won every constructors' championship, with their power unit being a major factor in their success.

The Mercedes power unit has been praised for its high levels of power and efficiency, with many experts considering it to be the benchmark for other manufacturers to aspire to. Additionally, the power unit has been very reliable, with Mercedes suffering very few engine-related retirements during races.

While other teams have made progress in recent years in closing the gap with Mercedes, the German manufacturer has remained the team to beat. So, We can say that the Mercedes power unit has been dominant in recent times in Formula One.