A watershed of design?

Porceliamone

Porceliamone

This cost me a tenner, but so L'Oreal.
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I quite literally stumbled across this article and didn't previously appreciate the significance of this car to today's 'modern' F1 cars.

http://www.f1technical.net/features/689

Have a read and post your thoughts. I'm sure there's more history/participants with regards this kind of developmental shift than the parties alluded to in this article alone, so feel free to enlighten me!

Cheers

P.S. It's a pity that Coughlan, someone so ingrained with F1 and it's development, is no longer and probably never will be again, involved in the sport.
 
Good read, i remember when all this was happening and the problems they were having at the time with the MP4/18 and numerous reports.

It certainately was quite revolutionary for the time however, reliability really was an issue which took ages to cure as virtually everything was new and as the two failed crash tests for example proved, very fragile including the engine as mercedes were not the most reliable at that time!

I need a memory refresh around twin keel versus zero keel technology (time to do some digging me thinks) Whilst Coughlan may have been instumental in this i think the cars for macca at that time are better remembered for Newey design. Probably why everyone got excited when he went to red bull!
 
I agree. I remember the fragility of it at the time. I especially remember how Mercedes went from being the absolute powerhouse motor to a mediocrity of sorts, from the perspective of both power and reliability. A somewhat sudden occurence I recall. I'm glad to see they've upped their game these past few years though.
 
Ilmor - "After originally developing IndyCar engines, the company built a partnership with Mercedes-Benz to power F1 cars for both the Sauber and McLaren teams. After the death of Paul Morgan in a vintage aeroplane crash in 2001, Mercedes increased its stake until it owned the entire company, and renamed it Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines Ltd."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilmor
 
Thanks McZ, knew someone had the knowledge, and as i suspected it kinda ties in with the point the engines went to hell for a while!
 
Ilmor were using Beryllium in their F1 engines in the late 90s. This was controversially banned at the end of the 2000 season, and was considered to be a major reason why Mercedes lost their competitiveness. At the same time, BMW came in and really blew everyone away with their 2001 engine, which probably made the Merc look worse than it was.

Of course, the death of Paul Morgan certainly didn't help matters.
 
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