Hamilton hoping for better Mercedes reliability

2014 German Grand Prix

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Lewis Hamilton is hoping to draw a line under the reliability problems Mercedes have experienced during the first half of the season.

Hamilton failed to finish in Australia and Canada due to technical problems, and team mate Nico Rosberg was sidelined while leading the British Grand Prix last week.

That allowed Hamilton to move within four points of Rosberg heading into this weekend’s German Grand Prix.

“I feel like I’ve been on the back foot all year,” said Hamilton, “only briefly leading the championship despite taking the wins I’ve had, so to have got myself just about level was exactly what I needed.”

“It’s almost a fresh start heading into the second half of the season and it’s going to be a really close battle between us.”

Mercedes have only been beaten this year on occasions when their cars have been slowed or forced to retire due to technical problems, as Rosberg did at Silverstone.

“Of course, you never want to see your team-mate fall away, but hopefully we can now strike a line under the retirements and push each other all the way on track,” Hamilton added.

“You can’t have everything – the best car, the best pace, the best speed at the end of the straight and perfect reliability – because things are on the limit. But I know how hard the team are working to get as close to that benchmark as we can possibly be.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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18 comments on “Hamilton hoping for better Mercedes reliability”

  1. WilliamB (@william-brierty)
    15th July 2014, 10:48

    That is the frequent paradoxical nature of F1. Whilst Rosberg retirement at Silverstone was fantastic for Hamilton’s championship hopes it is yet further evidence to suggest that the best car on the grid is also rather fragile; and mechanical components don’t tend to attempt to redress the deficit between a historically “lucky” driver in terms of reliability and a more “unlucky” one…

    1. Dunno, Mercedes has certainly been one of the more reliable cars. Only really Ferrari stands out as having better reliability

      1. WilliamB (@william-brierty)
        15th July 2014, 12:17

        @sdtaylor91 – And yet Mercedes have such a substantial margin in terms of performance they don’t need, as every other team needs, to run their components at ten tenths; if Red Bull and Williams were closer it would be logical to suggest that we would see more Mercedes failures. And whilst there are less reliable cars on the grid, we saw both W05s hit issues in Canada, a oil pressure failure for Lewis in FP2 at Silverstone and a gearbox failure for Nico in the race; worrying Mercedes are loftily ranked in terms of chassis failures versus the rest of the grid in recent races.

        1. The oil pressure issue was the same that hit Susie Wolff – both engines were past their accepted racing life, but it (apparantly) basically ruined the engine.

          That’s a pretty significant worry for all 8 Mercedes-engineed cars as the year wears on.

          1. That’s a pretty significant worry for all 8 Mercedes-engineed cars as the year wears on

            And one that can be analysed and addressed now to try and prevent it happening again. I guess this point onwards was always going to be a case of juggling the power units and trying to use ones with less mileage in races.

        2. It would be nice to see some other winners this year.. Bottas would be a good candidate, but Williams might fall back without their FRIC; it’s probably more likely to be a Red Bull or Alonso, unless Mercedes sweep the remaining races.

    2. I echo @sdtaylor91 thoughts, the Merc has been leagues above everyone else’s car and just as reliable. Has Lewis forgotten his final year at Mclaren where he potentially had the fastest car and the Woking team failed him on numerous occasions? Then again these quotes are probably manipulated or misquoted from another greedy journo

  2. I wonder how much worse the Mercedes’ reliability would be if they were actually being pushed by the other teams?

    1. But both drivers are pushing each other more often than not…

      1. @jcost – Yes, but not at 100%. The Mercedes’ advantage ranges between one to two seconds per lap depending on the circuit, so most of the time during races they’re only running at 80 or 90%. If another team caught right up to them, and forced them to run 100% throughout the race, I’m sure we’d see even worse reliability from the Merc’s, probably level with Red Bull.

        1. Thanks Paddy for letting us know exactly how hard the cars are pushed in the race when fighting each other….

          1. But if is the biggest word in the dictionary, and if another team were to start pushing the mighty Mercedes’ that would mean they (said pushers) too would be needing to push full on, thus risking increasing their own unreliability record as well. And fuel, tire, and equipment conservation would then kick in anyway for Merc and their theoretical closest competitor.

  3. push each other all the way on track

    Haha, I read this as off track at first!

  4. Retirements due to technical failures so far this season:

    Red Bull (Renault): 4
    Mercedes (Mercedes): 3
    Ferrari (Ferrari): 0
    Lotus (Renault): 7
    McLaren (Mercedes): 1
    Force India (Mercedes): 0
    Sauber (Ferrari): 3
    Toro Rosso (Renault): 8
    Williams (Mercedes): 1
    Marussia (Ferrari): 1
    Caterham (Renault): 6

    It’s pretty clear that Renault’s reliability has been pretty disastrous. That isn’t even counting the numerous problems in qualifying, which I can recall quite a few happening specifically to Renault-powered cars.

    One thing I do find intriguing, is that the Mercedes works team has suffered the same amount of problems as the other Mercedes-powered teams combined if you include Button’s DNF in Bahrain.

    Ferrari seems to be lacking horsepower (same amount as Renault?) but they do have some solid reliability, which for a brand new engine with lots of complicated hybrid stuff that a lot of people can’t even understand how it works, isn’t too bad.

  5. They have no more technical problems than the other teams.

  6. Good grief, all comments about the car, surely someone wants to slag off Lewis or praise Nico and vice versa.

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