Mercedes F1 Director Explains Why They Didn’t Change All Engine Parts on Lewis Hamilton’s Car

Lewis Hamilton will take a 10 place grid penalty at the Turkish Grand Prix. The Mercedes driver has finally taken a brand new engine, which is his 4th of the season. There was a bit of discussion regarding when he will take the new engine as his title rival Verstappen had taken it in Russia last race.

But like Verstappen, Lewis will not start from the back of the grid as he has not changed every component of the power unit. Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin stated why the team changed just the ICE.

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There’s balance and risk of reliability issue: Shovlin

As reported by GPBlog, Shovlin mentioned that the German team are simulating all the races. He also stated why they decided not to change the rest of the components of the engine.

“We are simulating all the races until the end of the year. There’s balance and risk of the reliability issue,” said Shovlin.

“The thing you definitely don’t want to do is fail during the race and take a penalty anyway. Then there’s the performance element because the power unit loses horsepower over their life.

“The ten-place penalty is the bit that most contributes to the reliability element. And the performance is the ICE itself. It’s better to take ten places than start from the back,” explained the Mercedes engineering director.

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Shovlin explains why they chose Turkey for Lewis Hamilton

Andrew Shovlin stated they felt Turkey was a good track for them to change the power unit in Lewis’ car. He also referenced how Lewis overtook the field in Turkey in his GP2 days.

“Working out how easy it is to overtake is hard. In your own mind, you know which tracks are good for passing. Sochi has a long straight, but we were struggling with understeer, which made it tricky. Hamilton, you remember in the GP2 race, he felt there were lots of opportunities here,” said Andrew.

It would be interesting to see if Hamilton would need to take the other components in the remaining races of the season.

Can Lewis recover in Turkey? Let us know.