© Sebastian Kawka for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix ltd.
Mercedes decided to provide Lewis Hamilton with a new exhaust system on his power unit, but Toto Wolff confirms there will be no engine swaps.
The Technical Delegate’s Report from the FIA confirmed that Mercedes has opted to provide Lewis Hamilton with a new exhaust system on his power unit.
“The exhaust system used by Lewis Hamilton is one of the eight new exhaust systems allowed for the 2021 Championship season and this is in conformity with Article 23.2a of the 2021 Formula 1 Sporting Regulations,” a note from the FIA reads.
This means that the move will not incur any penalties. However, unfortunately Mercedes has had some troubles with its engines in 2021, which led to multiple swaps and grid penalties for both Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas.
At the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Friday press conference Toto Wolff was asked about this.
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“I think that what we have seen this year is that we had a lot of degradation on our power units,” the Austrian said.
“It’s a phenomenon that we only really understood after the summer and it would put us in a situation that the engine would lose reliability, and we’ve seen that Valtteri is on his sixth engine and Lewis on his fifth.
“So therefore putting a new engine in Lewis’s car hopefully protects from a reliability standpoint and would mean that it’s a fresh engine and it was new in Brazil. “
There has been a lot of talk about the possibility of Mercedes opting to provide Lewis Hamilton with a fresh engine ahead of the final race of the season, however, Andrew Shovlin already said that’s not the plan and now Toto Wolff confirms it to Sky Sports Italia.
“No, the engine works fine, we keep this engine,” the Austrian said.
