Mercedes-Benz Motorsport boss Toto Wolff has said that there is no links between Lewis Hamilton’s engine unreliability that has cost the British driver precious points and the win last time out in Malaysia.
Speaking to Motorsport.com, Wolff has clarified that the failures are not linked: “It’s interesting, as most of the failures were not linked to each other. “They were different failures – and it was failures that were either in the supply chain, or they were material problems, or assembly problems or just a mistake in the design or fatigue, below the mileage where it should have been. There’s no pattern in those failures that we can identify.”
Hamilton’s engine failure will cost him hugely in the Championship race with Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg. The bad luck has blighted Hamilton throughout the season with MGU-H failures earlier on in the season which has given him an uphill task in many races.
The engine failure in the Malaysian Grand Prix could have been caused by Hamilton pushing the engine to try and beat the closing Red Bull’s.
Wolff explain that could have caused the engine to blow, “He was flat out back then. We needed to build the 23-second gap to allow a free pit stop.
“Red Bull did everything right today, pitting Verstappen when they did. They had two cars to play the gamble with the virtual safety car period – and then there was the risk at the end that they would leave one out on the hard to try to make the one-stop – which would’ve been extremely difficult.
“They still could have tried it with one of the two, and pit the other one. So we were trying to extend our stint and it was going in the right direction because we were building that gap.”
The engine failure was extremely frustrating for the team but Hamilton will continue to push and try and close the gap to Rosberg.
