Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Circuit de Catalunya, 2018

Hamilton fears engine degradation will hurt his Canadian GP chances

2018 Canadian Grand Prix

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Lewis Hamilton is concerned a loss of performance from his power unit will leave him at a disadvantage this weekend.

Mercedes originally planned to introduce a new engine specification this weekend. The original, six-race-old units were going to be re-used at the Hungaroring, which is a much less power-sensitive circuit.

However Mercedes decided not to introduce the upgraded units after discovering a “quality issue” with them. All six Mercedes-powered drivers will therefore use their original power units for the seventh race this weekend at a circuit where straight-line speed is particularly important.

“This is a power circuit so it definitely was our target [to have the new engines],” said Hamilton. “The guys worked as hard as they could. We had to take a sensible decision to not bring it here which is definitely unfortunate but we will try and make do without.

“But it will mean our performance is not probably the greatest. It will be the seventh race on the engine. The goal is to make the engines stay the same the whole way through [its life] but naturally [if] it’s degraded you lose horsepower over races. If we’re on seven or eight thousand kilometres it will definitely have lost performance. At a power circuit it will probably be multiplied.”

Hamilton said his priority this weekend is collecting more points.

“This is a power circuit, there is power loss. All I’m hoping for is reliability. I’m on the seventh race, difficult circuit on the engine, I just want to see it through.”

“Naturally I’m still here to win,” he added. “But if [our rivals] have got upgrades in their engines which can be a tenth to two-tenths, Ferrari are particularly very strong on the straights… it’ll be interesting to see whether we’re able to match them. We’re going to give it everything we’ve got.”

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12 comments on “Hamilton fears engine degradation will hurt his Canadian GP chances”

  1. I wonder what “quality issues” means. If they’re worried enough that they feel a seven-race old engine would be more reliable than a fresh engine then it must be considerable. We’ll see how this affects Hamilton’s mood over the weekend.

    1. It could have been something they found that would not really hurt the engines for the first couple of races, but remember that if they introduce the new engines those will then have to last another 6 races so maybe they just found that a component did not quite make it to give them a good feeling about them lasting all the way @knewman.

    2. @knewman, the indication is that there was a minor defect when machining the crankcase (in the order of 0.02mm) that has forced Mercedes to change their plans.

  2. Well, more like instead of winning by 20-30 seconds, it’d be winning by 12.

  3. It’s still Hamilton in Canada.
    6 wins in 11 races. Would you really bet against him here?
    Sometimes you just get a track driver combo that just clicks. As long as the engine doesn’t blow up he’s still on for a podium at least.

  4. God let’s hope so. I hope he blows up on turn 1 lap 1.

    1. @jblank, I see that you are rather blatantly fishing for a reaction with that sort of comment – if you’re going to try and troll people, you could at least put some effort in rather than going for the laziest and most childish reaction that you could come up with.

      1. You got yourself, on your own, you even made the effort of hiding behind anon.
        Now seriously, it would be interesting to see Mercedes falter. It’s annoying to keep hearing Lewis second guessing the team or restlessly coming up with moans and excuses.

      2. Or maybe I want a good and competitive race and grow tired of four years of MB domination. Go cry in your corner, sorry for being critical of your idol, bitch boy.

        1. @jblank, ah, how predictable – firstly, the false assumption that I am a fan of Hamilton, followed by the usual tendency to double down on the rather ham fisted and incompetent attempt at trolling by throwing out further insults.

          No, I’m commenting because, quite simply, I’m bored of seeing people like yourself throwing out this sort of post not for the sake of wanting a conversation, but simply because you want somebody to react and then throw out insults because you want to see yourself as winning by attacking anybody whom you think is not supporting your driver. It is the sort of thing that ruins sites, and I’d rather not have this site overrun with people childishly calling others “bitch boy” because people are criticising them for wanting to stir up trouble.

          @peartree, the irony of an individual who complains about others posting anonymously whilst hiding behind a “nom de plume” is rather evidently lost on you.

  5. Ballsy move, merc reliability is great nevertheless to risk dnfs on such a critical season for reliability. To think that whatever hesitation mer has they believe they can have new pu ready is also ballsy.

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