alexx_88 wrote:What would be the point and what would they say? That Mercedes doesn't put Williams' needs above those of the works team. That Mercedes AMG HPP doesn't give them access to Mercedes F1's team engine mappings? It would be pointless, these are things that you accept when you are a customer team.
You have made the assumption that A, Williams are totally ignorant when it comes to engine maps, B, the base mapping is provided to all customers, C, Williams only do minor tweakings to the maps.
alexx_88 wrote:Every gain helps. 1% difference in laptime and maybe 2% in engine power doesn't count as lightyears. Also, then why is everyone in F1 saying that being a works team is better? Cost is much higher than being a customer and it also forces you to stick to your supplier even if it's totally crap (look at RB). Also, this is what the Merc bosses had to say on the subject:
Mercedes is confident that being able to develop the engine in tandem with the chassis has given its team an advantage this year.
"I think so, yes," managing director of Mercedes High Performance Powertrains Andy Cowell said. "The Mercedes power unit is designed in close collaboration with Bob Bell the technical director [of Mercedes], and has been right from the release of the regulations. Every nut, bolt, washer and cable is designed around this car. That provides an advantage."
Mercedes executive director (technical) Paddy Lowe said working closely with the engine team based in Brixworth had allowed his team to tightly package the rear of the car to maximise downforce.
"That's been one of the big challenges because there's been so much extra equipment to fit in, particularly cooling," he explained. "Bigger hybrid system cooling is required and then the charged air cooling to cover, so everything was pushing towards a bigger package at the rear end. The big area of research was to try to find our way through that to prevent growth. That's where we come into the territory where the combination of effort between the teams at Brackley [chassis] and Brixworth [engine] has been very, very helpful."
"has given its team an advantage
this year."
"Every nut, bolt, washer and cable is designed around
this car" (W05)
In 2015, the fact that Mercedes put in all this work to balance chassis and engine is nothing but a benefit to a customer team.
Because you see, all the engines go in F1 cars comprised of the same components.
alexx_88 wrote:I said you were trolling because you asked how could the PU be optimized for the aero of the works team. I thought that such an established member of a technical F1 community would not ask how the PU influences packaing, thus aero and how the works team is able to get more information than a customer team.
It´s already been over a year! The engine is nothing new to Williams anymore.
they know the engine by now and can optimize the chassis (and aero) around it. Read the bolded part above.
The question you should ask is for example why Force India and Williams has gone a different direction in terms of say coolers.
That´s quite a big piece of equipment stuck in the sidepods.
alexx_88 wrote:I said that the software is different, as in the maps of the PU are different and that is a very valid assumption to make. Control strategies are heavily influenced by temperature which is heavily influenced by cooling choices. Secondly, working closely with the engine team allows you to push the maps a little bit closer to the edge. How can you do that as a customer team in a formula with a limited number of engines per season.
Again, base mapping is provided to which Williams add their own flair to.
Nowhere does it say Mercedes has a completely different engine mapping and it would make little sense since they both are running the exact same engine.
alexx_88 wrote:Honestly, I can't understand what kind of evidence you're looking for. I'd like to be able to show you maps from Williams and Mercedes, but that's not possible.
so we´re left with assumptions then. Which in reality has zero weight behind it.
It all stems from the assumptions that tweaking the engine maps for the engines is super hard in F1 terms, that engine manufacturers do not do anything for their customers even though it´s in their best interest to do literally everything to make sure their customers have the best engine they could possibly have.
And that there´s zero collaboration between the customers and the engine manufacturer.
It´s like people have this notion that engines are dropped off by FedEx and just come with an IKEA manual.
"If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then brother that person is a piece of sh*t"
Besides the cost of doing this, the main problem is the image penalty. As the spirit of the rules say that testing is limited to reduce costs, doing this is clearly against that.
