The engine alarm at Mercedes has been ringing for a few months now, so much so that Hamilton and Bottas introduce a higher number of engines during the season than the 3 allowed by the FIA international sporting regulations.
An unusual situation since Formula 1 adopted hybrid propulsion, or rather from 2014, the year in which – moreover – the Mercedes epic began, capable of reaching 14 world titles among Drivers and Manufacturers.
But, this year, the story is completely different. At the head of the Drivers’ World Championship is Max Verstappen with a 19-point margin over Lewis Hamilton and, after the Mexican GP, Red Bull has made up for it against Mercedes and is now just one point behind the team based in Brackley.
But that’s not all, because today Mercedes has unmarked the fifth engine – thermal engine – on the car number 44, that of Lewis Hamilton. For this reason, the 7-time world champion will incur a penalty of 5 positions to be served on the grid this weekend, at the Sao Paulo Brazilian Grand Prix held in Interlagos. This will translate into a potential advantage for Max Verstappen, who will have the opportunity to further expand his lead over Hamilton.
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W12
Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images
Toto Wolff, boss of the Mercedes-AMG team, explained to Sky Sport UK what are the reasons that led the Mercedes leaders to make this important decision.
“We have an engine problem which will continue to decrease power until the end of the season,” said Wolff. “We have not yet understood why this is the case, but we are seeing the engines continuously lose performance.”
“We have seen in recent years that, after exceeding 1,000 kilometers, the engines begin to lose kW. Ours is degrading much more than the average of recent years and is doing so from weekend to weekend.”
“So, if we kept the engine quattro, the one unmarked in Turkey, we would certainly have been uncompetitive in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi”.
Wolff confirmed that, in the last races of the season, Hamilton will be able to count on the engine made his debut in Turkey and on the one unmarked today in Free 1 of the Sao Paulo Grand Prix. But also to have chosen Brazil to mark a new thermal engine unit due to the format that provides for the Sprint Qualifying.
“It’s an opportunity for us. Of course in Saudi Arabia we could have had a good opportunity too, but we think the engine would have lost too much power by getting to that race. This is the right place to do it. I think the engine unmarked today is the last one we will introduce this season for Lewis, “concluded Wolff.
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