A 'big-end bearing failure' caused Hamilton's Sepang engine blow; Mercedes to use more conservative oil spec at Japanese GP
Monday 10 October 2016 10:53, UK
Mercedes have traced the fault of Lewis Hamilton's race-losing engine failure in Malaysia and issued revised running parameters for all their cars at this weekend's Japanese GP.
At Suzuka, Hamilton will revert to the engine he used at the previous race in Singapore.
After the unit spectacularly failed in the closing stages of last Sunday's race when Hamilton was on course for victory, Mercedes flew it back to their engine base in the UK to get to the bottom of what went wrong.
The world champions have now confirmed the cause as a bearing failure.
"Our analysis has shown that Lewis' engine suffered a big-end bearing failure," said Mercedes. "This happened without warning after 618km and was preceded by a loss of oil pressure in Turn 15.
"For this race weekend, Lewis will revert to his Singapore unit and Nico will use his Malaysia engine."
In a bid to avoid any repeat in Japan, Mercedes will impose different parameters across all eight cars that use their engines with the changes including, but not limited to, a more conservative oil specification.
The manufacturer has also decided to delay the introduction of customer units for five drivers "to contain further possible learning from the strip of the failure unit".
Does Hamilton need to win all five?
The timing of Hamilton's latest reliability setback has come at a critical time of the championship, with his retirement allowing team-mate Nico Rosberg to open a 23-point world championship advantage with just five races to go.
Mercedes technical chief Paddy Lowe admitted "we let Lewis down in a big way" and the team's engineers are working hard to ensure the problem will be "contained for the remainder of the season".
But despite Hamilton losing one of his remaining internal combustion engines, Lowe confirmed parity between the Mercedes team-mates and title rivals.
"As it stands, despite the failure of this engine, Lewis now has the same stock of power units as Nico for the remaining five races - including used power units which he can fit for free practice sessions," he added. "So, hopefully there will be no further impact to his programme."
