Mercedes Power Unit Hardware & Software

[Facts Only]

The Turbo unit will be water cooled as well so burst turbine wheel could also lead to water wvapour/steam.

Sure! Not trying to argue anything.

O.k then, odd.

[NL_Fer]

It is interesting to see that the blueish smoke comes from the lower part, blowing 45 degrees in the air. the yellow flames came out if the exhaust. No smoke from the intake.

[hurril]

The Turbo unit will be water cooled as well so burst turbine wheel could also lead to water wvapour/steam.

Sure! Not trying to argue anything.

O.k then, odd.

What is odd?

[PlatinumZealot]

Yellow flames can be oil too. A whole gushing of oil..

Anyways it is just too suspect that onky one drivers engine is failing. Like four failures in one season. It is just too much.

[gruntguru]

Sabotage? Hamilton haters?

[3jawchuck]

Yellow flames can be oil too. A whole gushing of oil..

Anyways it is just too suspect that onky one drivers engine is failing. Like four failures in one season. It is just too much.

I'm still thinking that all of Hamilton's kit came from one batch, set of machines, quality inspection team or something like that. Something in Hamilton's engine supply chain is not working as it should and Merc really ought to figure it out. I really doubt a saboteur, but it is possible that a disgruntled employee has been able to mess with things, but it's really unlikely. Conspiracies may be a load of hogwash, but it is some awful luck he's having right now and I don't blame anyone for letting their mind drift off that way.

[Facts Only]

There aren't 'batches' or 'Sets of Machines' or seperate quality inspection teams.

All of the engines are made on the same machines, assembled by the same people and inspected by the same quality dept' (and then run up on the dyno's). They then go to an engine pool where the next engine in line is taken as it is needed for whichever driver, they are completely randomly assigned.

The supply chain is the same for every driver with a Merc PU, there is no conspiracy.

Also the disgruntled employee thing is ridiculous, that engine faliure for Hamilton just cost each member of staff hundreds of pounds by losing the win. Hamiltons reliabilty problems this year have cost each employee £thousands in lost bonuses, that may not matter to Toto Wolff but on the shop floor thats big money. If somebody was delibertatly sabotaging the engines I think the rest of the staff would have taken them round the back of the factory for a "good talking to" by now.

The only thing that I think has any substance is that MGP will be pushing there engines in a more optimised environment than the customer teams, they will be working closer to the limits on cooling, fueling damage matrices etc etc so they will be the ones who experience failure first.

Manor have no interest in blowing up engines to gain 1/10th and WF1 and FIF1 are locked into such a tight battle for 4th now that neither want to risk a non-finish which could lose them £millions in prize money.

[3jawchuck]

There aren't 'batches' or 'Sets of Machines' or seperate quality inspection teams.

All of the engines are made on the same machines, assembled by the same people and inspected by the same quality dept' (and then run up on the dyno's). They then go to an engine pool where the next engine in line is taken as it is needed for whichever driver, they are completely randomly assigned.

The supply chain is the same for every driver with a Merc PU, there is no conspiracy.

Also the disgruntled employee thing is ridiculous, that engine faliure for Hamilton just cost each member of staff hundreds of pounds by losing the win. Hamiltons reliabilty problems this year have cost each employee £thousands in lost bonuses, that may not matter to Toto Wolff but on the shop floor thats big money. If somebody was delibertatly sabotaging the engines I think the rest of the staff would have taken them round the back of the factory for a "good talking to" by now.

Thanks for the clarification on how Merc handles their engines. But is there really only one set of production equipment making these engines? There's not multiple machining centres etc., there's only one machine for each purpose? Because, something like one coordinate measuring machine being slightly out could lead to engines that are closer on acceptable tolerances than ones worked on by another machine, couldn't it?

Regardless of who is getting these failures, as that is likely just down to blind luck. Can you really dismiss some fault in the production process, somewhere?

I don't believe there is a conspiracy or a saboteur, even though you seem to be rebutting a claim I never made in that regard.

[Facts Only]

All of the parts once made go into stock, which is then taken to make engines, which are are then randomly assigned to drivers. Whether there are multiple machines or not the build and alocation process mixes everything up so even if there were a bad batch there is no system that means they would all end up on the same car.

Sometimes statistics and chance are against you. I dont profess to know much about probabilties and dont have the exact reliability number to hand (but I'll make a guess) .

Lets just say that Hamilton has had 3 failures, no other driver has had any what are the chances?

Lets simplify things and say that the engines go out 8 at a time (one for each driver).

Chance of failure1; 8:1
Cumulative chance of failure 2; 8*8 = 64:1
Cumulative chance of failure 3; 64*8 = 512:1

But then if you weight it to say that MGP run the engines closer to the limit and the customers are more coservative you would bring it each chance of failure down by 1/2 to say 4:1 that means the chance of Hamilton getting the failures is on 256:1

Those aren't particularly incredible odds, especially when compared to some of the things that have happended in F1. What would the odds have been of the 7 different winners in the first 7 races in 2012?

[3jawchuck]

All of the parts once made go into stock, which is then taken to make engines, which are are then randomly assigned to drivers. Whether there are multiple machines or not the build and alocation process mixes everything up so even if there were a bad batch there is no system that means they would all end up on the same car.

....

But then if you weight it to say that MGP run the engines closer to the limit and the customers are more coservative you would bring it each chance of failure down by 1/2 to say 4:1 that means the chance of Hamilton getting the failures is on 256:1

Those aren't particularly incredible odds, especially when compared to some of the things that have happended in F1. What would the odds have been of the 7 different winners in the first 7 races in 2012?

That makes sense. It still doesn't discount manufacturing error though. They'll know anyway, no doubt everything is registered and catalogued.

Those odds should make you raise your eyebrow, how do they compare with the actual rate at which failures have occurred? The first 7 races of an F1 season are wild and filled with unknowns and variables to take into account, much more chaos, more probability for weirdness to happen.

[ReoPTy]

or maybe its a 2015 renault engine, as they are used to fit renault engine, mein goth

[Facts Only]

I'm not discounting manufacturing error, all failures will be becase of the either: The way it was designed, the way it was made or the way it was used.

What I'm discounting is that the manufacturing process has had any influence on the number of failures Hamilton has had compared to anyone else. If it is a manufacturing error it will be purely down to Hamilton being the unfortunate and getting all of the bad parts (not statistically that unlikely).

I wouldnt raise my eyebrows at 256:1 either, thats not bad odds. if there are 22 drivers that means it would occur ~ every 11 seasons.

[Fulcrum]

I'm not discounting manufacturing error, all failures will be becase of the either: The way it was designed, the way it was made or the way it was used.

What I'm discounting is that the manufacturing process has had any influence on the number of failures Hamilton has had compared to anyone else. If it is a manufacturing error it will be purely down to Hamilton being the unfortunate and getting all of the bad parts (not statistically that unlikely).

I wouldnt raise my eyebrows at 256:1 either, thats not bad odds. if there are 22 drivers that means it would occur ~ every 11 seasons.

Or, to put it another way, there is an ~ 8.25% chance of observing one or more drivers experiencing a 1 in 256 event in any given year, assuming they're independent and identically distributed. Not unlikely at all.

[godlameroso]

I think it's more likely the hubris that comes from knowing you have a nice engine pool. Hamilton said he never gets close to the limits of the engine. Could this have been a consequence of that? We saw that on the last stint the Mercedes could be a second faster than the Red Bull but could not sustain such a pace. The same happened in Spa.

[Brian Coat]

I agree that it won't be conspiracy/sabotage/Elvis/driver/car colour ...

It's just bad luck that his engines and not Nico's fell off their perches.

The somewhat cruel aspect is that random probability has no memory.

Despite the fact that over (say) 1000 Merc team engine failures, you'd expect them to have 500 each, Hamilton's chance of suffering the *next* engine failure is no better than Rosberg's.