本田引擎墨西哥站暴露新脆弱点
本田在墨西哥站因引擎在特殊工况下缺乏稳健性而遭遇双退，阿斯顿·马丁两辆赛车几乎同时退赛，本田已为巴西站采取应对措施。
本田在墨西哥站以新的方式暴露出其F1引擎缺乏稳健性的问题，这已经促使本田为本周的巴西站采取应对措施。
上周末，阿斯顿·马丁两辆搭载本田引擎的赛车几乎同时遭遇灾难性的双退：费尔南多·阿隆索在赛道上停车，兰斯·斯特罗尔在仅完成五圈后回到维修区并在车库退赛。
本田此前一直警惕墨西哥高海拔带来的挑战，但认为其为应对稀薄空气所做的缓解措施已经足够。然而，本田赛道负责人折原慎太郎表示，主要的“教训是我们的引擎在特殊情况下存在一些稳健性不足”。
阿斯顿·马丁的练习赛里程正常——一练替补车手杰克·克劳福德的问题是另一回事——但排位赛中暴露出本田面临严重问题，双方在周日正赛前很久就知道赛车很可能无法完赛。
墨西哥的散热需求似乎暴露了本田引擎内部一种意想不到的脆弱性，这种脆弱性由特殊的运行阶段触发——比如排位赛中的轮胎准备圈和前往发车格的编队圈。
据折原表示，这导致引擎“表现有些异常”，其能量回收系统的冷却回路承受了压力，随后出现了MGU-K故障。
这个问题与典型的赛车散热挑战没有直接关系，比如在车流中行驶，或者车身如何影响其散热能力。
这也不是特定部件故障的问题，因为阿隆索在周末中途更换了MGU-K，而斯特罗尔使用了完全不同的引擎，正如首席赛道官迈克·克拉克所指出的，这指向“更像是一个普遍性问题”。
折原也表示，这不是在模拟中能够检测到的问题，但在测功机上会显现出来，这意味着它涉及物理相互作用，并将被纳入本田未来的测功机工作中。
这两辆车实际上遭遇了同一故障的不同阶段——一辆水压上升，另一辆压力降得过低。这只能说明其中一辆在同一路径上走得更远——因为当水压上升时压力会下降，随后开始泄漏。
这表明是发动机使用问题对能量回收系统冷却产生了下游影响，因为它与V6发动机的运行有关。
据推测，能量回收系统冷却回路上的应力与密封回路中冷却液压力上升有关，尽管折原没有详细说明发动机异常如何导致这种情况，也没有说明墨西哥更稀薄的空气是否产生了具体影响，比如降低了冷却液的沸腾裕度。
问题很早就急剧恶化，且无法控制。当时已安排了一些缓解措施，比如让赛车进站以获得干净气流——这就是两辆车最初在第三圈结束时进站的原因——以及更谨慎地使用挡位并降低动力。
“你有一份可以调用的选项清单，”克拉克说。“但我们很快意识到这些选项不够用。然后你就无能为力了。”
这些经验教训将被纳入本田2027年的研发工作，但折原表示本田也为本周末的英特拉格斯带来了一些修复措施，这条赛道压力远不及墨西哥，但仍是海拔较高的比赛。
这些对策涉及软件和校准，以及硬件方面。折原没有详细说明具体内容，但推测它们与控制发动机在这些特殊运行阶段的行为有关，以及赛道在墨西哥发生泄漏的情况下承受压力的能力。
墨西哥站的挑战还有另一个方面，是本田并未如自己以为的那样准备充分。尽管针对高海拔做了专门准备，但它在起步阶段遭遇了更严重的涡轮迟滞，当时发动机排气能量低、增压压力下降，折原也承认“我们的软件在那样的条件下鲁棒性不够”。
双车退赛在阿斯顿·马丁的赛后报告中引出了一个不寻常的场面：车队老板兼技术主管阿德里安·纽维被引用了一句话：“这是令人失望的一天，尤其是因为费尔南多整个周末都展现了非常好的速度。”
被问及此事时，克拉克说：“我认为没有人开心。我们已经有很多次退赛，[在墨西哥]又一次双车退赛，没有人能开心。我想他也是如此。”
英文原文
Honda got caught out by its Formula 1 engine’s lack of robustness in a new way in Mexico, which has already prompted countermeasures for this weekend’s race in Brazil.
A disastrous double-DNF occurred almost simultaneously for Aston Martin’s two Honda-powered cars last weekend, when Fernando Alonso stopped on track and Lance Stroll came back to the pits and retired in the garage after just five laps had been completed.
Honda had been wary of the challenge posed by Mexico’s high altitude but felt the mitigation it had worked on to combat the thinner air would be sufficient. Instead, Honda’s trackside boss Shintaro Orihara said the main “learning point is our engine, in special circumstances, there’s some lack of robustness”.
Aston Martin’s practice mileage was normal - an issue for FP1 stand-in Jak Crawford was of a different nature - but it emerged in qualifying that Honda faced serious issues and both parties knew well in advance of Sunday’s race that the cars were unlikely to finish.
The cooling demands of Mexico seemingly exposed an unexpected fragility within Honda’s engine that was triggered by special running phases - like a tyre preparation lap in qualifying and the formation lap to the grid.
This caused the engine to “behave a little bit abnormal”, according to Orihara, with stress put on its energy recovery system’s cooling circuit and a subsequent MGU-K failure.
The problem was not directly related to typical car cooling challenges like running in traffic, or how the car’s bodywork was impacting its heat-rejection capacity.
It was also not a question of faulty specific parts as Alonso had an MGU-K change mid-weekend and Stroll used a completely different engine, which as chief trackside officer Mike Krack noted pointed to “more of a general problem”.
Orihara also said it was not a problem detectable in simulation, but would be on the dyno, which means it relates to a physical interaction and will be incorporated into Honda’s future dyno work.
The two cars effectively suffered different stages of the same failure - one with rising water pressure, one with pressure dropping too low. This just means one went further down the same path - as the drop comes when the water pressure rises, then a leak starts.
It suggests an engine usage problem causing a downstream effect on ERS cooling, as it relates to the operation of the V6.
Presumably the stress on the ERS cooling circuit relates to coolant pressure rising in a sealed circuit, although Orihara did not elaborate on specifics for how an engine misbehaving would cause that or whether Mexico’s thinner air had a specific impact like lowering the coolant’s boiling margin.
The problem spiralled early and could not be contained. There were some measures lined up to mitigate the issue like pitting the cars for free air - which is why both cars initially came into the pits at the end of lap three - and being more cautious with gear usage and reducing power.
“You have a list of options that you can pull,” said Krack. “But we quickly realised that they were insufficient. And there’s nothing you can do then.”
The lessons from this will be adopted into Honda’s development work for 2027 but Orihara said Honda has also brought some fixes for Interlagos this weekend, which is nowhere near as stressed as Mexico but is still a higher-altitude race.
The countermeasures relate to software and calibration, and on the hardware side. Orihara did not elaborate what these were but presumably they relate to controlling how the engine behaves in those special running phases, and the circuit’s ability to contain the pressure given the leak that occurred in Mexico.
There was another aspect to the Mexico challenge that Honda was not as well-prepared for as it thought. Despite readying something altitude-specific, it suffered more severe turbo lag at the start, when the engine’s exhaust energy was low and boost pressure dropped, with Orihara admitting “our software doesn’t have enough robustness for that condition” either.
The double DNF triggered an unusual sight in Aston Martin’s post-race report, in which team boss and technical chief Adrian Newey was quoted with a single line that read: “It has been a disappointing day, especially as Fernando showed very good pace all weekend.”
Asked about that, Krack said: “I think nobody was happy. We have had a lot of DNFs, another double DNF [in Mexico], and nobody can be happy. And I think it’s the same for him.”
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