Canada
Mercedes To “Wake UP” After Experiencing Technical Difficulties In Canada
Formula One

Canada, 2019 six races into the 2019 F1 championship with six victories and four double podiums thus far, all is not well at Mercedes F1. At the Canadian Grand Prix Mercedes introduced an upgraded power unit. However, winning the Grand Prix wasn’t as easy as it appeared. Customer team, Racing Point, was the first to experience reliability issues with the Phase 2 engine. A spark plug failure forced Lance Stroll to return to the Phase 1 engine. 

Aware of the issue the works Mercedes team also experienced technical issues before joining the grid on Sunday race day. Engineers scrambled furiously to fix a hydraulic leak. However, the Phase 2 engine had no issues during the race. But the team regard Canada as a “wake up call” for reliability.

Despite winning the Canadian Grand Prix Mercedes F1 team boss Toto Wolff appeared less than satisfied. More relieved that Hamilton secured victory. During an interview at the teams HQ in Brackley, Northampton, Wolff said:

“After a run of very good reliability over the opening six races, we experienced a number of problems over the course of the weekend, almost all of which were of our own making – from the problem with the fuel system on Valtteri’s car in FP1 to the hydraulic leak on Lewis’ car which we had to fix on the morning before the race.

“We were fortunate that those reliability issues were exposed when we still had the chance to solve them, but we know that they could have easily ruined our weekend and it is down to the great skill of our mechanics that they didn’t.

“We expect another tough fight in France next weekend. The circuit features some similarities to Montreal and the long straights will present a challenge for us.

“The entire team – at the track, delivered to a very high level and we need to make sure that we achieve the same high standard again for France.”

The next race at the French Grand Prix will be challenging. Ferrari is have made detailed changes for their car in a bid to end the Mercedes winning streak. Vettel hasn’t won a race since the 2018 Belgium Grand Prix.


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