Mercedes admit to facing 'little issues' with power unit

Andy Cowell

Mercedes admit to facing 'little issues' with power unit

Andy Cowell provided fans with an update ahead of 2020

Martin Macdonald

Tuesday 4 February 2020 13:43

Ahead of the upcoming 2020 Formula 1 campaign, Mercedes have given an update on how their engine preparations are coming along, admitting that there are some “issues” that need to be addressed.

The Silver Arrows have won the last six constructors’ and drivers’ championships - a record in the sport - and are going for their seventh this season.

Their car (and of course, Lewis Hamilton) have been the recognised reasons for their success over this period, so naturally, a lot of attention is on the development of their 2020 power unit.

With over a month to go, they have updated on their preparations.

"Lots going on in Brixworth, lots of improvements across the whole power unit, on the ERS side, on the internal combustion engine side," Cowell said on a video posted on social media.

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"As ever fighting a few little issues as we pull everything together.

"So lots of work going into building the right spec, getting it long-runned, and then providing power units to the teams so that they can fire up their cars - I think you've spotted one that's fired up already!

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"And then getting the hardware ready to go track testing. Car launch on February 14th, with a red rose, and then off to Barcelona with three cars hopefully pounding round the track.

"Just six days of track testing then before we're off to Melbourne."

However, the Mercedes engineer highlighted the difficulties of putting so many parts together on a car, only to separate them for each journey around the world for races.

"And the race pool, a huge number of those parts already made, assemblies going together, and the challenge of getting everything to the other side of the world,” he explained.

"So a busy time, chasing bits of performance, getting the reliability there, getting the huge amount of hardware together, and getting it to the other side of the world."