Hamilton: Mercedes sacrificing performance for reliability

Lewis Hamilton feels Mercedes has opted to prioritise reliability over outright performance compared to its Formula 1 world title rivals which could play a key role in the championship fight.

The reigning F1 world champion has secured back-to-back wins to extend his advantage to 17 points in the drivers’ standings at the Spanish Grand Prix. Despite sweeping to pole position in qualifying and a dominant victory at Circuit de Catalunya, Hamilton insists Ferrari has moved ahead in terms of outright performance over a single lap while its race pace is evenly matched.

Mercedes, who has totally dominated the V6 hybrid engine era with four consecutive F1 world drivers’ and constructors’ titles, feels following its edge in performance last year it has focused on reliability seeing it as a pivotal factor in the title fight.

For 2018, each F1 driver is limited to three engine units and two electronics packages for the season before incurring grid penalties. Ferrari’s first chink in its reliability came in Spain when Kimi Raikkonen suffered two separate engine issues while Renault and Honda cars have also been hit with problems.

Hamilton accepts the switch in focus is vital to Mercedes’ title aspirations to the point of losing its performance edge on Ferrari.

“From what I am told, it has swung a little bit the other way, so in qualifying they [Ferrari] are a little bit up on us and in the race, we are pretty much the same,” Hamilton said. “Time will tell if reliability is the same.

“We have put in a lot of work to make sure our reliability is great. We seem to have lost a little bit of performance in making sure the reliability is great, or some of the others have gained performance but will they go the distance? So maybe we are sacrificing performance for a little bit of endurance.”

So far in 2018, Mercedes has recorded just one engine-related retirement in the opening five races across its works and two customer teams Force India and Williams, with Esteban Ocon’s DNF in Spain caused by an oil leak in his Force India which isn’t expected to hit his engine usage for the next race.