Montreal Race = MGU-K and Brake failures

Formula One can be boring. That’s a fact I’ve repeated many times in my previous posts. But last week’s race was one hell of a race with many disqualifications, crashes and system failures. Speaking of system failures, because of these I want to change my To-Do-List and talk about what failures occurred in Montreal, where the race took place.

MGU-K system (motor generator unit-kinetic) is an indispensable feature of a Formula One car. This system adds around 160 bhp to a F1 car’s power. How? Well, this system converts kinetic energy that is generated under braking into electricity and this is stored in batteries in the Energy Store (ES). This energy can then be used as additional power. Long story short, it makes the cars go faster! ;)

In Canada, both Mercedes cars lost this MGU-K system around the 37th lap. So, that meant that they were much slower than other cars on the circuit. But this loss has not only caused slower cars but in Hamilton’s case, it overloaded the rear brakes. Because of this new brake by wire system the discs are much thinner. Many teams think that the KERS system can slow down the cars but that’s not always the case. At a circuit especially as the Canadian one that goes hard on brakes the cars start to fail.

Let me get back to the break by wire system: When the driver hits the brake it is not just the brake discs that slows the car down, the energy recover system (ERS) also does a significant amount too. This means that the drivers left pedal is no longer linked directly to the rear brakes instead it is linked to a computer which then controls the rear brakes. The front brakes continue to operate in the same way as they always have done. The main reason for this is that rules say that the car is only allowed to recover a certain amount of energy per lap from the rear brakes, and there is only a limited amount of energy that can be stored in the battery.

Both Mercedes cars and a Force India car were struggling with the new Brake-by-Wire system. After Perez (Force India driver) lost his rear wing break, he collided heavily with Massa on the final lap, putting both cars into the wall at high speed on the pit straight.