Toto Wolff believes Lewis Hamilton cannot afford a single DNF in the last seven races if he is to win a record eighth world championship. As we enter the final third of this fascinating Formula One season, reliability becomes more of a concern for all the teams.
In Sochi, Hamilton’s teammate Valtteri Bottas received a new power unit after receiving one at the previous race in Italy, while title rival Max Verstappen received a new engine as well, forcing both the Dutchman and Bottas to start from the back of the grid.
In Russia, Nicholas Latifi had to replace the Mercedes engine in the back of his Williams with a new one, and Wolff was asked if he was concerned about reliability after the race.
“Definitely we are in a phase of assessment, how to continue this season in terms of power units,” he said. “I think we haven’t only made the cautionary engine change [for Bottas] because we felt we wanted to stockpile, but also because we want to understand the engine’s performance, and that has given us some question marks.”
Hamilton, who won his 100th Grand Prix in Russia, is still within his three-power-unit season allocation, but does Wolff expect either of his drivers to be penalized for more engine changes this season – or, worse, suffer an in-race failure that could result in a DNF and have a significant impact on the championship?
“At the moment, we’re just taking it one race weekend at a time and [we will] reassess the performance of the power units and then take decisions,” he said.
These concerns about the power unit come amid the tightest title battle F1 has seen in years, with only two points between Hamilton and Verstappen – and Wolff expects the fight to go down to the wire, with neither contender able to afford a single race without points.
“I think neither driver and neither team can have any comfort in the current situation, because there is just no gap in terms of points and I think that this is going to go very long.
“Reliability versus performance is always the fine line that you need to get right, and as I said before, DNFing obviously is a no-go for the championship, and nobody, neither us nor our competitors can afford a zero-point race weekend,” he added.
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