Mercedes engine chief Andy Cowell confirmed that Mercedes have made considerable changes to their new power unit, designated M09 EQ Power+, developed to meet substantial changes in the Sporting Regulations for the 2018 season.
The team said on the occasion of the launch on Thursday: "The reduction in the number of power unit components that can be used per driver per season without incurring grid penalties meant that durability had to be extended to withstand the higher distances the hardware now has to run."
To which Cowell confirmed, "The amount of change on the power unit for this year is quite considerable and driven by a number of requirements."
"The biggest challenge we’ve got is lifting our durability limit with the challenge of racing just three engines per driver per championship and two ERS systems. That’s a 40 percent increase in the distance that the hardware needs to do for this year compared with last year."
"We focussed on trying to increase the life of the hardware without losing performance.” In addition to the changes coming from the new Sporting Regulations, the team of Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains sought to improve the power unit in other areas as well."
The shape of the new power unit has also been altered to enable more efficient packaging of the related components and in turn will enable the teams - Mercedes, Williams and Force India - to extract more performance from their respective chassis.
Cowell explained, "We also wanted to change the packaging of the power unit for the benefit of overall car performance. We’ve been working very closely with our colleagues in Brackley, trying to understand the best overall integration in the chassis, the transmission and the aerodynamic surfaces."
"We’ve also been working on combustion efficiency and hardware friction reduction in partnership with Petronas," he added.
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