McLaren, an SREC made in Zytek

Lewis Hamilton can thank Zytek. Winner at the last Grand Prix of Formula 1, in Hungary, the Briton owes his success to his qualities as a pilot but also to the advantage of having an SREC on his car. The kinetic energy recovery system, which allows the benefit of 80 additional horsepower for 6,67 seconds, notably enabled the world champion to overtake Mark Webber, placing him in second position behind Fernando Alonso, the Spanish driver retiring a few laps later. In addition to this one-off help, Lewis Hamilton?s victory will go down in history as the first success of a single-seater equipped with SREC.

We now know that, if McLaren can be satisfied with its SREC, Zytek Automotive has a lot to do with it. The Zytek group was pleased to have won a contract to develop the SREC, but had not revealed the name of the team for which this SREC was developed. It was therefore McLaren, which was able to count on the close collaboration of Mercedes-Benz, the team's engine manufacturer, and Zytek, to develop an efficient and reliable system, the most advanced SREC on the F1 field.

This system, since the start of the season, has created controversy. Wanted by BMW then by the FIA, the SREC was developed and used by McLaren, Ferrari, Renault and, therefore, BMW. But it was slow to demonstrate its effectiveness and two of these four teams, Renault and BMW, decided to do without it for the rest of the season. For these teams, the millions of euros committed and the time spent, before seeing limited effectiveness of the SREC, were not justified. As proof, the two dominant teams at the start of the season, Brawn GP and Red Bull, did not have this system.

But McLaren, finally satisfied with its SREC, decided to keep it for the end of the season. After a failed start to the year, the Woking firm recovered over the course of the races, before winning its first victory in Hungary, thanks to Lewis Hamilton. And the SREC is no stranger to this.