Mercedes unsure on Hamilton’s ‘catastrophic’ F1 engine failure in Australia

Mercedes Formula 1 Technical Director James Allison admits it is still unsure about the”catastrophic” engine failure that ended Lewis Hamilton’s Australian Grand Prix.

Hamilton had made his opening pit stop as he aimed to climb from 11th on the grid when he suffered a power unit shutdown on Lap 17 that sent him into retirement.

The seven-time champion, who will move to Ferrari next season, revealed post-race that he had received no warning that the engine in the back of his W15 would fail.

Ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix next weekend, Allison conceded that Mercedes was still in the dark over the reason for Hamilton’s race in Melbourne being curtailed.

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When asked on Mercedes’ Australian GP debrief video whether the root cause of Hamilton’s engine failure had been diagnosed, Allison answered: “We do not.

“The power units will return to the safe hands of the guys at Brixworth, who will be able to figure out what let go.

“All we know is the symptoms at the time, which was a rapid loss of oil pressure followed by a shutdown of the engine to protect it because when you know you’ve got catastrophic loss like that, the best thing you can do for the future is kill it there and then.

“And then you have not just got like a load of molten metal.

“You have normally got a fairly clear evidence chain of what caused it. And then that lets you work better for the future.

“So, we do not know yet, Brixworth and HPP will do in short order. And no doubt as soon as we know then they will jump to with their characteristic energy to make sure that any risk that happens on any other engine is mitigated as best we can.”

George Russell would also fail to reach the chequered flag as he crashed out on the final lap from sixth place at Turn 6 when chasing Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin.

Regardless of the double retirement, Mercedes had endured an underwhelming weekend as it continued to be staggered with how inconsistent its 2024 car behaves.

Based on his team-mate’s relative pace to its rivals across the race, Allison predicts that Hamilton would have climbed as far as eighth had he remained in the running.

“We know from his first stint that he was going along okay on those Soft tyres, it was never going to be a long stint, but the car hung onto them adequately well compared with the estimates we had made beforehand,” Allison explained.

“He was not really on the Medium tyre for long enough before retiring for us to have much intelligent things to say about that.

“But if you just take George’s pace as a guide and say Lewis could have matched that then my guess is he would have been on for something like four points.”