Lewis Hamilton says he has not changed his approach ahead of this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix after a challenging race in Baku, with the Mercedes ace confident his team has fixed the issues that plagued his progress last time out.
The triple world champion experienced engine modes problems in Azerbaijan and was left fuming at his inability to receive any guidelines from his team because of the FIA’s stricter radio rules in 2016.
Some pundits pointed out that Hamilton might have better responded to the contingency had he spent more time in the simulator, claims that Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff dismissed in the aftermath of the Baku event.
“It was nothing to do with me so I haven’t had to study any more,” the Briton told the media at the Red Bull Ring on Thursday. “The decision that was taken before the race, the team decided a programme to take in the car and it didn’t work, so I don’t really know what to say. They are working hard to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.
“It had nothing to do with any of the functionality that I put in or any requests that I had for the car, it was actually the first time that the team had decided to use this at the beginning of the race, rather than activating it during the race and I started with it and Nico didn’t, so Nico went into it and realised that it didn’t work and disengaged, whereas I started with it, I did disengage it but it didn’t make any difference, so I knew that the feeling I had, that was the issue. I guess the team will do better to make sure that it works next time.”
Hamilton has already had to deal with his fair share of technical issues this year, making future engine grid penalties increasingly likely given the fact that only five power units are allocated per driver over the course of the season.
“Before this year I don’t think reliability was a huge thing, the team is always trying to get 100 per cent reliability but generally if you can get somewhere around the nineties you are looking good for fighting in the championship and the last couple of years I’m guessing were probably in the mid-to-high eighties maybe so reliability has genuinely been quite good.
“But of course it happens, we are pushing the car to the limit. This year for sure it’s been different. I don’t have an answer to why it’s happened the way it has but I’m starting with my last engine this weekend and so I will have at least one race where I start dead last, most likely two, probably. With two more fresh engines I’ll have to take six and seven.”
The reigning world champion also says he is frustrated to be the only Mercedes-powered pilot suffering from these engine-related woes.
“The worst thing is that I am the only Mercedes [powered] driver to have this, so for sure it’s difficult for us as a team and it’s difficult considering we are the Mercedes [works] team, so you wouldn’t expect it to happen.
“If there is 40 engines you would hope that we would have the best of the 40 but that’s just the way it goes and I’ll just have to do the best I can with the one I have now and hopefully the next one or two I get it doesn’t happen.”
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