Aguri to Stay With McLaren Powertrain
- Jul 17, 2015
- 2 min read
Team Aguri will be the sole outfit to remain with the McLaren powertrain that was universally used by teams in season 1.
For season 2, teams are allowed to develop their own bespoke powertrains. Eight teams have been announced as manufacturers; Aguri however, is not one of them.
Team Principal, Mark Preston believes that there are benefits to staying with what is familiar.
“We have chosen to stay with the same powertrain because we couldn’t see much change in the rules and we think the McLaren unit is strong and reliable,” said Preston. “We want to take what we know works and optimise it to its full potential.”
“We can play with the software as everybody is allowed to do that and we think there’s a lot we can still learn with this package. So we need to find out more about what we’ve got and that’s before others even start developing and focussing on their own custom-made powertrain.”
Preston believes that with a small team, it is better to take fewer risks as the resources aren’t there to quickly turn around any problems.
“When you look at the problems Honda are facing in Formula 1 this year with almost unlimited resource and when you look at the size of the teams we all have in Formula E we are tiny in comparison,” Preston added. “So by taking large risks if something went wrong with the development there isn’t many official test days to rectify the problem.
There are proposals that are currently being assessed that would see the power used during a race raised from 150kw to 170kw; the will give teams something else to think about whilst the cars are on track.
“The FIA are looking at changing the peak power especially in the race. The laps and race distance will probably be the same but we might have a higher level of power available. But you probably will only be able to use the peak power at certain times in the lap or maybe in particular phases of the race. It’s not ratified yet but we were able to run the predicted levels to see how it went.”
Pre-season testing begins in August with 6 dates on 10, 11, 17, 18, 24, and 25.
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