Mercedes explains pre-race scare for Hamilton in Canada

Mercedes has explained the pre-race hydraulic issue that left Lewis Hamilton sweating on making the start of Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix, with the team completing a rebuild on a “pretty tight” turnaround.

Hamilton’s car was found to have suffered an hydraulic leak following qualifying on Saturday at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, but the Mercedes mechanics were only able to act on the issue on Sunday morning in the build-up to the race due to parc ferme regulations.

Work on Hamilton’s car continued right the way up to his reconnaissance lap to the grid, but was completed in time for the Briton to claim his fifth win of the year ahead of Sebastian Vettel.

Speaking in Mercedes’ ‘Pure Pit Wall’ debrief, trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin explained the issue that hit Hamilton’s car, revealing it originated in the throttle actuator on the Mercedes W10.

“We dropped the floor, we noticed there was some oil on the floor so somewhere there was a leak. We could also see on the data we were losing some hydraulic pressure,” said Shovlin.

“Now, the issue is that the cars are then in parc ferme overnight, we are not allowed to touch them or to investigate it further. So, that investigation moved to Sunday morning, when we are allowed to access the cars again, the mechanics can work on them.

“We had to take the power unit out. We traced the leak to the throttle actuator, and then we made a request to the FIA to change the throttle actuator and some of the associated hydraulics. That work was quite a big job though, there’s a lot to do within that. And it was pretty tight to get Lewis’s car back together for the start of the race.

“Now, we are fairly happy we can do the work in that time. The issue when you have an unknown fault or a leak is you don’t know how long it is going to take you to find it, to identify it. We were able to get the car back together.

“Where we were at risk was if we then fired up and we found another problem, if the engine had to come out again, that’s when we would’ve got short on time and perhaps not even been able to start the race.

“But, it was a great job by all the mechanics involved and quite happily the car was back together in time and finished the race successfully.”