Automotive Design Guide: F1 Hockenheim

This morning’s session was preceded by heavy showers leaving a very wet track, therefore Nico and Michael ran on extreme wet tyres, with Nico having a short run on intermediates towards the end. With dry conditions for the afternoon session, the track was suitable for slicks, and gave the team the first opportunity to evaluate the latest upgrades for the MGP W01. Nico completed 52 laps and ended the day in fifth place with Michael completing 33 laps in sixth position. “In the wet conditions this morning, the car was very good and our pace looked quick. It was more difficult to get the intermediate tyres working, however we didn’t do many laps so I’m sure we would have been fine there too. In the dry this afternoon, I was less happy with the balance of the car in general. It was difficult as there was so little time to try and do our usual programme so we had to focus on the long runs without making too many set-up changes.

“Today's sessions were a bit mixed due to the weather conditions but we were able to get the car working by the end so it was a reasonable day. One of my excursions caused some damage to the floor which led to a second excursion afterwards and we decided to stop slightly early this afternoon. We are looking reasonable over one lap and on longer runs, confirming what we already hinted at during the last weekend in Silverstone. If everything goes as it should tomorrow, we should reach fifth or sixth position, which is a step forward, and maybe even more in the race. “It’s been an unusual and challenging day with the changing track conditions and a few small issues to overcome during our running. The car looked reasonable in the wet this morning and the experience will be helpful if the weather continues to be variable. This afternoon gave us the first opportunity to analyse our upgrades on a dry track. “We learned quite a lot today about the new upgrades that we are introducing here at our home race in Hockenheim. We had reasonable results but it is clear that there still is a gap to the quickest. Our race pace didn't look too bad so tomorrow we need to get a decent qualifying position for both our cars in order to get respectable results in front of our home crowd.

When Mercedes-Benz sends a model to AMG for high-performance finishing school, it’s hardly news. But until the CLA, nearly every car to make the trip to Affalterbach was packing an engine with a “V” cylinder layout. So when the power brokers at AMG began dropping not-so-subtle hints that they’d already had their way with the CLA’s inline four-cylinder powerplant, our curiosity was piqued. Would the result be a roguish, hair-triggered toy or a true CLS63 AMG mini-me, blending breathtaking power with Mercedes style and luxury? If you’re expecting the deep-throated burble of its bigger AMG brethren on startup, you’ll be disappointed. The CLA45’s exhaust note at idle is more akin to an air compressor kicking on in the neighbor’s garage than a menacing V-8. But it would be a mistake to write it off on tone alone. AMG has managed to coax 355 horsepower and 332 lb-ft of torque from the 2.0-liter engine, much of it on the shoulders of a twin-scroll turbocharger capable of force-feeding the engine with up to a whopping 26.1 psi of boost.

To make sure the internals stay contained under all that duress, AMG uses a special crankshaft, pistons, and a sand-cast aluminum block, which is stronger than the die-cast unit found in the pedestrian CLA250. A dual-clutch seven-speed automatic transmission with three driving modes funnels the prodigious output through a standard all-wheel-drive system. Thanks to a butterfly valve plumbed into the exhaust, the CLA45’s song begins to sound sweet around 3000 rpm and gets better as the revs climb. The power comes on early, pulling with the steady determination you’d expect from an engine that produces all 332 lb-ft of peak torque from 2250 to 5000 rpm; redline is 6700 rpm. Stay into it until it’s time to shift—automatically or initiated by the steering-wheel paddles—and you’ll be rewarded with a downsized version of the familiar bruuuump that accompanies gear swaps in the bigger AMG models. Using launch control, which allows the engine to climb to 4000 rpm before storming off the line catapultlike, we posted 0-to-60 times of 4.2 seconds and knocked off the quarter-mile in 12.8 with a trap speed of 110 mph. Selecting Sport mode delays stability-control intervention and allows for increased torque at the rear axle, making it easier to counteract understeer with a heavy right foot. Speaking of binders, we managed to haul the CLA45 to a stop from 70 mph in 152 feet. The discs span 13.8 inches in front and 13.0 inches in back, increases of 1.2 and 1.4 inches over the discs on the CL250. Repeated stops showed slight fade, but the pedal remained firm and high and the car straight. Performance aside, the CLA45 has a hard time hiding its comparatively humble origins. The interior follows M-B’s current design ethos, but a quick look at the plastics around the lower center stack and bottom of the door panels reveals where a lot of the cost cutting took place.

Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher were both in action today as the MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS team began this week’s test programme with the F1 W03 car at the Mugello circuit in Italy. Michael will continue at the wheel of the F1 W03 tomorrow, with Nico concluding the test on Thursday. “It was a good session for me this morning and a positive start to our testing programme. It’s nice to see that we have some new parts for the car and that the ongoing process of in-season developments is working well. We were able to learn some things in the wet conditions this morning which is always useful, and we picked up a few lessons. Mugello is an impressive track which is very fast and good fun to drive. It’s also good preparation for the next race in Barcelona with the high-speed corners. “Unfortunately we were not able to achieve much productive work on the track this afternoon as the weather made it nearly impossible to drive. Therefore it’s good that we collected some data this morning so that we can prepare the car in the best possible way for tomorrow.