Lewis Hamilton got a new combustion engine for the fifth time this season. The Briton made good use of this and managed to dominate the sprint race and the race despite setbacks. It finally earned him the full loot on Sunday.
No one could keep Hamilton behind on the straights. Max Verstappen was also no match for the seven-time champion, whose teammate Valtteri Bottas in turn was unable to come close to the Dutchman with an older engine. Mercedes gets the tip from former driver Martin Brundle to keep switching.
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Championship exciting until the end
According to the former Formula 1 driver, now an analyst at Sky SportsMercedes can do itself a favor by replacing Hamilton’s engine once again. “Now that Max’s lead has shrunk to fourteen points, the fight for the title will at least continue through the race in Saudi Arabia.”
“This story is far from over and therefore Mercedes will certainly consider installing a new combustion engine at Hamilton before the last big fight. That five-place penalty would be well worth it, as Lewis last weekend with a new engine all has overtaken nineteen other drivers, some of them even twice.”
“A fresh engine and whatever secret Mercedes has found with its reduced drag and high top speeds have made Lewis almost unbeatable.”
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Would Mercedes really consider it?
After the end of this weekend, it is of course something everyone is wondering. According to Toto Wolff, the intention is to finish the season with the current combustion engine. Lewis Hamilton may have a second in his group.
“We are going to end the season with this new engine,” Wolff said to, among others, last Sunday RacingNews365. Still, he says there is no certainty that the new engine will last four races. “We still have some questions about its reliability,” said the Mercedes team principal. “Hopefully we’ll find the right answers to that.”
From the words of Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director at the Silver Arrows, you could conclude that it was mainly a tactical choice. He said that was the case last weekend.
“There was no technical reason to do it,” he explains. “We didn’t run the risk of an engine failing and we still don’t run that risk. But you know these engines have to work very hard. And you can never take reliability for granted.”
“We hoped that we would be able to overtake well in Brazil and we have proven that. In addition, you also want those engines in the pool. If you take an Abu Dhabi with a new engine, you only have one race advantage. So there are several reasons why we did it. Looking back, we picked a good track,” Shovlin smiles.
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Conclusion
A possible new penalty for having a new combustion engine installed does not seem to be very heavy for Hamilton from a sporting point of view. With a five-place grid penalty, he may have ended up at the tail of a Sergio Perez or Valtteri Bottas within a few laps. A new engine makes overtaking the Red Bulls a lot easier. Bottas will step aside briskly.
Straight line speed will be very important on all three circuits ahead, as overtaking only seems possible on the straights on paper. Especially in Qatar there is only one place for a catch up next weekend. A little more power would therefore not be an unnecessary luxury. The danger lies in the fact that the Mercedes driver will have to start in midfield due to a penalty and therefore runs a greater risk.
Another factor is loss of face. Does Mercedes want to throw a new engine at it every race, just to win the title(s)? In that case, it will overshadow the performance of Hamilton and Mercedes. Especially in the short term, because in years to come no one will think about it anymore when one opens the history books. A title is ultimately a title.
Whether the deluge of engine changes at the German head office is also happy is another question. However, the negative attention that this generates is nothing compared to the positive attention that an eighth world title from Hamilton or the team would bring to the bigwigs in Stuttgart. A simple choice, isn’t it? What would you do? Let us know below.
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Verstappen powerless against Hamilton’s super-fast Mercedes
Of course there is a lot of talk everywhere about the fight between Verstappen and Hamilton and about the dominant way in which Mercedes took the victory in Brazil. How had that been accomplished? This and more in the new podcast!
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