Hamilton unlikely for a repeat of Bottas' "very unusual" engine failure
10:17, 28 Oct 2018
1 Comments
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has stated that Lewis Hamilton is unlikely to suffer with a "very unusual" engine failure that Valtteri Bottas had in practice on Saturday.
It was a hydraulic problem for Bottas just before the end of FP3.
"We've just heard that Valtteri's reliability issue shouldn't affect Lewis' engine," Wolff told RaceFans on Saturday. "Nevertheless, it is a reminder how fragile the situation is and how much everybody is pushing in order to extract performance.
"Reliability will continue to play a crucial role in this championship and that's why tomorrow (Sunday) it's about finding the right focus in finishing the race with the best possible performance."
Wolff confirmed that Bottas' engine will have to back to the team's headquarters to be assessed after its unusual failure: "The failure we have seen on Valtteri's engine is a failure we haven't seen for many years.
"You can call it a very unusual failure with mileage where it shouldn't have happened. So we need to investigate that. The engine is going to go back to England.
"The (High Performance Powertrain) guys and mechanics have done a really incredible job first in getting the engine onto the car in time and then calibrating it in a way so it can run here. That was not trivial. They kind of got it together, Valtteri said he couldn't feel a big difference, that's really making me very happy."
Read more about:
Today
Popular on GPBlog
1
F1 LIVE | Follow FP2 for the 2025 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
787 times read
2
Verstappen and Horner clearly not in agreement on the real problem at Red Bull Racing
701 times read
3
Mercedes 'not the right place' for Verstappen, concludes former strategist James Vowles
625 times read
4
Marko forecasts grim prospects for Verstappen and Red Bull: 'Next races will be tough'
520 times read