Lewis Hamilton preferred to take engine penalty in Turkey over Austin, as Toto Wolff expands on only ICE change and nothing else.
The big news of the weekend, in some people’s eyes was Hamilton taking an engine penalty, deciding to go for a fourth engine for the season, one more than is permitted. With seven grands prix to go including Sunday, the Brit was on engine number three. but then there is a risk of a failure perhaps so take the punishment now.
They were discussing about taking it Austin, but eventually Hamilton preferred to take it in Turkey itself. “Obviously there have been a lot of discussions over the past two… week and a half, whatever, and I was pushing to hopefully keep engine number three,” he said. “They were doing lots of work right up until Friday.
“It was Thursday night, I think, and they took the decision. We knew that at some stage we would probably have to, just to be 100 per cent sure and safe so it was whether we took it here or somewhere else. Austin’s a pretty good place to do it but I preferred to do it here,” summed up Hamilton.
By taking the penalty now gives him more races to play with the new engine. But it is only the ICE for Hamilton, with Mercedes not opting to take a fourth of other parts. Wolff explained the idea behind taking the fourth power unit, with reliability concerns, and how they are to use the third engine in his pool.
He clarified that the other parts seems to be in good shape, which is why they only took the power unit. “It was clear that we had to take a fourth one, the question now is how and when we want to deploy the third power unit which is in the pool,” said Wolff to written media.
“That’s something we need to decide in the next couple of races because you could decide to run it only on Fridays or only on Saturdays and Sundays. The other parts, the turbo or the other auxiliary elements are in a wonderful shape and I am really happy, easily within the mileage limits and therefore we didn’t need to take new components.
“For the fourth engine, it is not necessarily only mileage, it’s more about understanding a different reliability topic,” summed up Wolff. The Brit is not the only one as McLaren eventually changed their plans to put a fourth power unit on Daniel Ricciardo’s car too after the Australian qualified at a low place. They took a fourth TC and MGU-H too.
The story was co-written by Neil Farrell
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