Mercedes has revealed that a broken electrical wiring loom was probably to blame for Nico Rosberg’s Singapore Grand Prix disaster.
The German had a problem on his lap to the grid which resulted in the team changing his steering wheel in the hope it would solve the problem, however as the formation lap began it became apparent that the problem was much worse and Rosberg was wheeled into the pits.
He managed to start the race but retired several laps later as he attempted to pit for fresh tyres, but eventually threw his hands in the air and called it a day.
Speaking about the retirement, Wolff said: “It looks like a broken loom in the steering column, which was within the duty cycle and not towards the end of its life cycle.
“It just shut the whole thing down,” added Wolf.
“The only thing that worked was the gear change and then the radio came back. There was no hybrid energy any more, so when we called him in we changed the steering wheel, and tried to get it going but it wouldn’t.
“The only way to get it going was to get first gear in at high revs, and this is when I said stop, we don’t want to have a jack flying out of the rear of the car and hurting somebody.”
