F1 W05 (Germany, 2014)

The Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team unveiled the F1 W05, its 2014 challenger, at the Circuito de Jerez in southern Spain. Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton took the wraps off the first all-new Silver Arrow to hit the track since 1954. Designed from the ground up this new car marks an historic milestone in a landmark year when Mercedes-Benz celebrates 120 years of Motorsport and the 80th anniversary of the Silver Arrows.

The 2014 Formula One season marks the biggest change in regulations in the sport’s history and the F1 W05 has been designed to meet the challenge of this technical revolution. The result is the new F1 W05 and, at its heart, the PU106A Hybrid Power Unit, both designed to meet the challenge of a fundamental change in the philosophy of Formula One. The introduction of a demanding maximum race fuel allowance of just 100 kg per race, coupled with a maximum fuel flow rate of 100 kg/hour, have focused the efforts of the sport’s engineers on delivering performance with a set of innovative new technologies that achieve an efficiency gain of more than 30%.

The Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) at the heart of the new Power Unit has been down-sized to a 1.6 litre V6 configuration and down-speeded to a maximum of 15,000 rpm. To achieve high power delivery and therefore efficiency from the ICE, a pressure charging system has been introduced, in the form of a single stage turbocharger and compressor. The new Hybrid Energy Recovery System (ERS), which incorporates electric motors capable of recovering both kinetic and waste heat energy, presented a ten-fold greater challenge than its predecessor, KERS, which was pioneered by Mercedes-Benz in 2009. This advanced Hybrid system is integral to car performance and marks a significant step forward in both system performance and durability.

The Power Unit has been designed for optimum installation in the F1 W05 chassis. This new car is the product of an aggressive development philosophy targeted at optimising the packaging of new on-car systems, such as the increased cooling demands of the Power Unit, in order to give the team’s aerodynamic group maximum freedom to respond to a significantly different regulatory framework.