© LAT Images for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd
Mercedes Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin explains Mercedes’ decision to swap Lewis Hamilton’s engine ahead of the Turkish Grand Prix.
The swap exceeds Lewis’ allocation limit, which means he will have to serve a ten-place grid penalty at the Turkish Grand Prix.
Mercedes has opted to only swap Lewis’ internal combustion engine (ICE), which will cost him ten places at the race start, instead of a full power unit swap, which would relegate him to the back of the grid.
“We are simulating all the races until the end of the year,” Andrew Shovlin told Sky Sports F1.
“There is the balance and risk of a reliability issue, and obviously the thing that you definitely don’t want to do is fail during the race and then have to take a penalty anyway.
“Then there is also a performance element because the power units do lose a bit of horsepower over their life.
“The 10-place penalty is the bit that most contributes to that reliability element and the performance is the ICE itself, so it is better to take 10 places than to start from the back.”
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There is still a possibility of adding more fresh components, especially if Lewis doesn’t qualify well, but for now Shovlin says there are no plans to swap anything other than the ICE.
“Unlikely really. There is a lot of fairly intrusive work when you start changing some of those elements during the race weekend.
“So we are pretty happy with the decision we have taken so far and that is likely on what we’ll stick with.”
Shovlin goes on to say that Mercedes expects Lewis to be able to progress up the grid in the race, as Istanbul Park has been a strong circuit for him in the past.
“Working out how easy it is to overtake is actually quite hard because you know in your own mind which are the tracks that are good for passing.
“Sochi has got a very long straight but we were struggling with understeer and that made it tricky. But this is a circuit, you’ll remember Lewis in that GP2 race where he felt there is a lot of opportunity here.
“So it should make for an exciting Sunday,” concluded the Briton.
