Mercedes' has not made the step it had hoped for on reliability in Formula 1 this year, with its situation getting "worse and worse" according to Nico Rosberg. At Monza, Rosberg was forced to revert to an older-spec engine following final practice after a leak was discovered in the cooling system that contaminated his upgraded power unit. Three laps from the end of the race, Rosberg's old engine - that was already high on mileage - failed as the German was pushing for second.
In Singapore Lewis Hamilton's car suffered a freak failure when a metal clamp broke on the plenum that caused a boost leak.
Rosberg was struck by another issue in Russia on Sunday when he was forced out of the race early on by a throttle pedal failure. Even Hamilton encountered a problem with his rear wing late on in the race, although it was not enough of a problem to deny him the win.
Asked about the lack of reliability of late, a frustrated Rosberg told Autosport after the raceon Sunday:
"It's a strange one. Just when this year it looked like we were looking so good on reliability, to then have quite a few issues, it's surprising and it's got worse and worse now through the season. In the last couple of months we've had loads more issues, race stoppers and things like that. We must look into that again and continue to improve in that area. It seems we haven't made as big steps as we thought
The problems in Italy and Russia in particular mean Rosberg's title challenge is all but over as he trails Hamilton by 73 points with only 100 available.
No comments:
Post a Comment