Hamilton forced to stay in garage during red flag: "Our engine can't do that"
F1 News
- GPblog.com
Due to the red flag as a result of a crash of Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton ran out of time. His first fast lap was invalidated and he should have aborted his second lap. So he had to go out as fast as he could to set a time before the flag fell.
However, despite that necessity, Lewis Hamilton was not waiting at the front of the queue for the traffic light at the end of the pit lane. In fact, he was waiting in the pit box for a long time. Due to the delay of the cars waiting at the traffic lights, Hamilton had only a few seconds left at the start of his lap.
Mercedes did not want to take the risk
The fact that Mercedes made the choice to wait so long was by no means a luxury. Honda, Renault and Ferrari have the option of turning off their engines and restarting them using the MGU-K. The Mercedes engine cannot do that and so Mercedes did not want to run the risk of the engine overheating while waiting for the pit exit.
"We couldn't send it outside because you'd have to turn the engine off and restart it with the MGU-K, something we can't do," says Toto Wolff to RaceFans.net. That's also why Lance Stroll's car was pushed aside after a while. His Mercedes power unit overheated.