Valtteri Bottas says he had to back off repeatedly to preserve his engine during the Australian Grand Prix and suspects Mercedes left too little margin with its cooling package.
Bottas climbed from 15th on the grid to finish eighth but revealed he had to drop back from other cars to keep his power unit cool.
“And there was not much things happening that was really helping me. I think the Virtual Safety Car maybe I gained a little bit, stopping under that.
“Other than that it was a pretty frustrating race in the end because we do have a good car but there was nothing I could do. I was trying to take all the opportunities, got some overtakes.
“On top of that what was really limiting us today was overheating. I think there was something wrong with the calculation for the cooling we estimated for today so I couldn’t really be close to other cars so I couldn’t put pressure on other cars for long, I could only be, like, two laps and then I had to back off, try again. So it was not quite ideal.”
Although Bottas didn’t have to switch engine modes to reduce stress on the engine, he said the need to back off for the engine restricted his pace more than tyre degradation. “I never could push as many laps in a row that I had issues with overheating of the tyres.”
Lewis Hamilton was told on several occasions at the end of the race to back off to reduce engine temperatures while he was chasing Sebastian Vettel.
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Phylyp (@phylyp)
25th March 2018, 11:25
And I presume the phenomenal weather during testing also masked this issue during their long runs.
Chaitanya
25th March 2018, 12:00
desert climate of Bahrain wont leave any place for Mercedes to hide. it will make matters worse for them.
SaraJ (@sjzelli)
25th March 2018, 15:30
Hallelujah
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
25th March 2018, 20:11
@phylyp I don’t think so. Their cooling was fine until that point, according to Allison.
Sunday was predicted to be a lot cooler and the Mercedes were not expected to be in traffic so I guess that was the problem. Cars left parc ferme Saturday so Bottas was locked in to that amount of cooling.
Asanator (@asanator)
26th March 2018, 11:30
Not sure that applies if you smash your car to bits in Quali.
nase
26th March 2018, 12:30
@asanator
It does. You can repair the car by replacing damaged pieces with functionally equivalent pieces, but if you want to change anything that breaks the Parc Fermé rules, that’s a pit lane start for you.
SpaFrancorchamps (@spafrancorchamps)
25th March 2018, 11:57
The car is designed to lead the pack. Good knowing that in order to use their weakness, you have to be in front. That’s really going to help their rivals.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
25th March 2018, 12:04
I view this cooling issue as a problem that is more easily solved than Mercedes finding it hard to follow a car due to aero issues.
I’m sure some Merc mechanic will be busy beavering away with a hacksaw to open up a few additional cooling ports in the sidepods ahead of their next race.
However, Mercedes have found it hard to stabilize their car in the wake of another car ahead, a problem that has been ongoing for some time.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
25th March 2018, 16:32
Statistically being P1 is better than being good in traffic. They can make a choice on it. Others simply lack overall to be P1.
I am certain Bottas wouldn’t struggle with temps in P1.
Ed
25th March 2018, 20:37
It can be an issue on a track where overtaking is difficult. Bahrein with that long straight they wouldn’t waste two laps doing the overtakes they couldn’t do this race and then with fresh air, cool the engine.
It’s not a big deal by any means.
Guevara
25th March 2018, 12:19
Of all discussions this is the one of few worth of technical discussion, sounds like merc pushed the design taking in consideration only optimistic race conditions as being always in front, quite worrying that both Ham and Bot suffered of the same issues…..
Sonics (@sonicslv)
25th March 2018, 12:52
The good thing is now Mercedes and Red Bull confirmed they can’t just easily pass midfielders. Of course Albert Park is hard place to overtake but it means the top 3 can’t be assured finished in top 6 anymore, making every mistake and grid penalty matters to them a lot more.
Steven Robertson (@emu55)
25th March 2018, 16:04
This could be the key point of the season. The days of starting at the back and being guaranteed at least 6th place are over.
socksolid (@socksolid)
25th March 2018, 16:18
This could sadly lead to knee jerk reaction from fia if the drs is not easy enough.
Alonso (@alonshow)
27th March 2018, 0:55
Easy, guys, this was a circuit where overtaking is so difficult they beat the record for DRS zones. It will probably be the same in Monaco and Hungary (just like every year, anyway). But let’s see how it pans out in places like China and Bahrain, odds are overtaking will be business as usual there.
Enigma (@enigma)
25th March 2018, 13:04
In hindsight, might have been better to start him from the pits on softs and go deep into the race. With Mercedes’ pace he might’ve climbed higher up …
Markp
25th March 2018, 13:34
Did Williams not have an overheating Merc engine problem as well? If so its great news as they may have to open up more cooling and turn the engine down making them slower.
Gabriel (@rethla)
25th March 2018, 13:38
Theres nothing wrong with the cooling, Bottas engineers just didnt plan for him driving behind a backmarker the entire race.
socksolid (@socksolid)
25th March 2018, 19:03
Hamilton also had to back off. And it was telling how the mercs had to try get into clean air on straights to cool things down.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
25th March 2018, 20:13
@rethla exactly, and race day was hotter than predicted before parc ferme. @socksolid not as bad as Bottas because he only had 1 car in front anyway as usual Merc set the car to run from the front.
Lauri (@f1lauri)
25th March 2018, 14:50
The higher the engine temps are the better the combustion efficiency is. When you lower engine temps you burn more fuel for the same power.
Guevara
25th March 2018, 22:55
Very true, however, you have three engines per year and you cannot run them as hot as you would like….
ADUB SMALLBLOCK (@waptraveler)
25th March 2018, 20:49
Hopefully, this is easily solved. But remember, Mercedes has bragged about how tightly they packaged the rear of the car this year? Too aggressive? Like Honda’s “concept zero”?