Hulkenberg happy with Cosworth power

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Nico Hulkenberg thinks Williams has benefitted from a boost in power since switching to Cosworth engines.

H?lkenberg drove the car with the Toyota engine – thought to be one of the least powerful in F1 last year – in December.

It’s good, I’m very positively surprised about it. There’s been no issues with reliability and drive-ability’s very good. It feels better, it feels stronger [than the Toyota].
Nico Hulkenberg

H?lkenberg was delayed by a hydraulic problem this morning which cost the team three hours of track time, meaning they weren’t able to complete the programme they planned:

The running we did was not bad I think we got some good results from our testing. But we targetted a lot more mileage and laps than we did today, so that’s a bit disappointing.
Nico Hulkenberg

The rookie driver has been making the most of the experience of team mate Rubens Barrichello to accelerate his development with the FW32:

At Valencia I was there one day early so I could listen in on the radio and go to the debrief, see the way he drives and look at the data.

I don’t think his approach is much different [to mine]. Obviously he has all the experience from his thousands of races.

We’re different drivers so one prefers this, one prefers that. There’s always a compromise. I will work with my engineer but we will always keep an eye on which direction he’s going and what we’re doing.

I’m just starting in Formula 1 so I think I can improve in every area.
Nico Hulkenberg

Barrichello will drive for the team in the next two days of the test.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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19 comments on “Hulkenberg happy with Cosworth power”

  1. TheGreatCornholio
    11th February 2010, 19:07

    Great hear a positive reaction to Cosworth’s engine. They’ve had plenty of development time with it so as far as power is concerned i reckon they’ll be competitive. After all, building engines is what they do and they’ve only been out of the game for 3years or so! If i remember correctly they were the first engine supplier to get one revving over 20,000rpm!

    1. I thought it was BMW with Williams.. was it?

      1. No, BMW got a V10 to 900 bhp first. Cosworth got the CA2006 (V8) to rev over 20,000 rpm in ’06. First to do so I think.

        1. first and only, because of the 19000 rev limit rule imposed in 07… and continued till now ( i think it even decreased to 18000, but not sure)

          1. Yep, youre right. Its 18000 now.

  2. Yeah its good to hear the cossie is looking good. I read in autosport that they had the most powerful lump in 2006 and merc based its then new pre engine freeze unit on it, taking quite a few cosworth guys onboard too. Maybe Williams will do well if the mpg’s arent too bad!

    1. Merc based its pre engine freeze unit on the cosworth?!!!!..You sure about that? If they were that good, why did williams drop them back then and also no other team take up their service?

  3. I remember the days when a new engine producer would need years in F1 to finally deliver a reliable engine.

    When Mercedes came back to F1 as an engine supplier (for McLaren) in 1995, those engines would have technical failures more often than not. The 1996 engine was quite good as far as reliability was concerned, but it lacked power. In their third year, 1997, the engine was one of the most – if not the most – powerful engine, but reliability was lacking again.

    In 1998 they eventually built an excellent engine, both in the power and reliability departments.

    This is just one example from the 90s. Mind that Mercedes had all the resources in the world to develop a new engine faster than others would. And they did.

    1. And then once new regulations came in Mercedes engines became unreliable again. I am astounded by the current reliability – I remember you used to get several blow-outs per race (let alone race weekend!) but now it’s fairly uncommon. Todt has commented on it too

      1. Mouse_Nightshirt
        11th February 2010, 19:47

        “Blame” more complex computing abilities.

      2. Remember Monza quali 09, both BMW engines blew within minutes of each other,

    2. TheGreatCornholio
      11th February 2010, 20:31

      Am i right in remembering that they purchased Ilmor and for a time the engines were referred to as Mercedes-Ilmor initially?

    3. The sad thing about Mercedes engines was they struck gold the second Kimi left McLaren.

      2007 was the first year mercedes produced a powerful an reliable engine at the same time since Kimi came into the team, and he’d left, and Alonso, Hamilton and Kovalinen got all the benefits. An he left just as McLaren came truly into their own, if Kimi had stayed at McLaren he would have won that championship by a hell of a lot more than a point, an well 2008, who wants to say, I DO IT WOULD HAVE BEEN KIMI!

      1. Ah, but if Kimi had stayed at McLaren then Schumacher would probably have stayed at Ferrari – things aren’t so clear cut then!

  4. i think this shows a very mature attitude from the young driver, who will obvously not only look up to Barrichello from a respect point of view, but can clearly learn a lot from him in terms of attitude and technical know-how.

    Barrichello may not be the fastest on the grid, nor the most contained when he gets upset, but he is one of most liked people in the paddock and by all accounts is a good guy to work with and hang around with.

    His comments about needing to improve in every area is exactly the kind of attitude that a champion-to-be needs in his first year in F1… not all rookies are Lewis Hamilton, but i predict a strong showing from Hulkenberg this year, and i won’t be surprised at all if he is faster than Barrichello by the end of the year.

  5. “Toyota engine – thought to be one of the least powerful in F1 last year”

    Are Stephan GP intending to use the Toyota engines???

    1. maybe they’ll use the cossie engines campos and usf1 were supposed to use.

    2. Aleksandar Serbia
      12th February 2010, 22:25

      Well it would be a shame not to!
      Since everybody else failed to jump at the opportunity, and realize to buy a working plan!

      Even if you are planning to build your own chassis or engine, or both, it is better to enter f1 with a used one, why?
      Well the sponsors know where you are, and are not going to gamble on weather you are going to be in the gravel or dnf every few races, not to mention being off pace for 2-3 sec a lap, just take a look at Toyota and Bar how quick were they when they entered F1. And they entered with bags of money, sums that newbie teams can’t conceive of!
      I was really surprised all those entries didn’t get the schematics of the ToyotaF1, glad that Zoran did :)

  6. This is good news for Cosworth…

Comments are closed.