Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn and Red Bull design guru Adrian Newey are both predicting struggles next season with regards the new power units.
The sport will switch to turbocharged 1.6 litre V6 engines in 2014 which are far more complex than the current V8 engines. Not only has the new technology undergone limited testing, it’s now made up of more components including a more powerful ‘ERS’ unit and a turbocharger.
Brawn predicts a higher than usual number of failures, possibly returning the days when a race would see an average of four failures.
“We will go back to a time such as 20 years ago,” he told Auto Motor und Sport. “The technology is so complex that I expect a lot of failures.
“There will be a new element of surprise,” he added, “and the failures will not just be the engines, but the individual components.”
Newey highlighted cooling as a particular problem and the new gearbox rules which permit a unit to complete six races.
“The new engines need a lot of cooling, because not only have you got the combustion engine, but the turbocharged parts too,” he told Crash.net.
“With the electrical side, what we call KERS, that also needs a lot of cooling. The cooling is a big challenge, the gearbox regulations are also different and there are some aerodynamic changes, so it is a big task.”
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