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Lewis Hamilton threw away what looked like a potential win, gifted to him in the closing
stages of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Seeming to take the lead at the restart, he
instead sailed straight on down the escape road at the first corner, dropping to the
very back of the train. Whoops. Awkward. “Did I leave the magic on?” he asked the
team. “I could have sworn I turned it off”. And as someone who accidentally left the oven
on all night last Thursday… Lewis, i sympathise. But what is the magic? Why do Mercedes have
it? And how did it end up so catastrophic for Hamilton?
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The magic that Mercedes weild is a brake system override used to get the car warmed up for
starts and restarts Let’s have a little reminder of the modern
F1 braking systems so we can fully appreciate where the magic comes in.
Before we got to the hybrid era of Formula 1, brakes were fully mechanical in that pressing
the brake pedal would put pressure on hydraulic systems that would apply force to brake pedals
that would then grip the brake discs rotating with the wheels, thereby slowing the car down.
A driver can adjust the brake balance forwards or backwards from the cockpit to choose how
much of the braking force is applied to the front or wheel wheels depending on how they
need the car to respond. Push the balance rearwards and the driver
frees up the front wheels a bit for steering under braking, so they can trail brake into
a long corner while maintaining control. Too much rear brake balance and the car becomes
at risk of locking at the rear and spinning out.
Move the brake balance forwards gives the car stronger, stable braking in a straight
line as you might need into a heavy braking zone into a slow corner.
This comes at a cost of being able to turn in with your foot on the brake so you’ll
need to get off the brakes before attempting to navigate the corner. A lot of front brake
bias will also risk the front wheels locking and hindering your ability to turn the car.
This balance will be adjusted corner to corner and through the race depending on characteristics
of the track and the conditions of the car, tyre, and track surface.
Now once the hybrids came in, things got slightly more complex.
With electric motors generators in the mic, some of the braking comes not just from the
brake pads squeezing the brake discs and dumping the car’s kinetic energy out via extreme
heat. On top of this, some of the braking at the
rear is achieved by stealing the rotational energy of the wheels to generate energy to
be stored in the car’s battery. As the battery charges, it slows the car down.
Incidentally, if you ever have the chance to drive an electric car - it’s wild! You’ll
notice how as you take your foot off the accelerator it immediately feels like it’s braking.
Not coasting. You can pull right up to a traffic light without
ever touching the brake pedal. It feels so odd at first.
Anyway! There’s whole videos on my channel going right into the technical details of
how the MGUK harvests energy under braking as well as how the actual brakes themselves
work, but for THIS video I’ll get to the meat of it.
Via electronics, the driver can adjust not just the front-to-rear brake bias but also
how much of the braking energy comes from harvesting versus mechanical braking.
Your normal expected brake balance range will be slightly forwards to manage the way that
the car’s weight will shift forwards onto the front axles under braking but Merc’s
magic button shifts the balance really far forwards while also shutting down energy harvesting.
Just full on brake disc power, mostly towards the front.
Why would you ever want to use this button? Well as covered previously on this channel,
the material of the brakes and the rubber of the tyres both have an optimum temperature
range. When inside this range, they will perform
at their best, with strong, predictable grip and traction. You can brake hard and deep,
you can lean on the tyres. During suspended periods of the race, like
while following the safety car, on your lap out of the pits, or while on a warm up lap
to the grid, tyres and brakes can cool below this optimum temperature range, which means
drivers need to be a little more tentative in braking, turning and acceleration until
they’ve warmed everything up again. And how do they warm them? Well, by braking
and turning and accelerating. Braking induces friction in the brakes, producing
juicy amounts of heat, turning and hitting the gas rubs and stretches the rubber against
the road, heating it up. That’s why cars weave, slow and speed on
warm up laps. They’re doing whatever they can to get the rubber and brakes closer to
the right temperature. So, with Merc’s magic button whacking the
brake bias forwards and forcing it to use just the brake discs, the front brakes get
hot very quickly indeed and in doing so will transfer some of that heat into the tyres
around them. In this way, Hamilton and Bottas can get their
tyres and brakes into optimal range fasters and be ON IT at the start and through the
opening lap to challenge of defend from those around them.
But. Having all the brake bias front loaded is not good for when you actually want to
attack a corner. Slam your foot on the brake pedal in anger
now and the fronts will just lock up with SO much braking force being directed their
way. And that’s what happened in Baku.
At the restart, Hamilton accidentally reactivated the magic brake mode apparently and the car
was setup all wrong for attacking turn one. The front’s locked, the brakes snatched,
the car refused to turn. On he went into the escape road and lost what could have been
a monstrous chunk of points in the championship fight.
I’m sure they’ll review and find a way to stop accidental presses of the magic button
becoming an issue in future. [GOTG2 clip]
Merc may have tricks up their sleeve, but as with all magic sometimes there are unintended
dark consequences. But the championship now looks spicy as all
hell.