F1: Mercedes Have Engine Issues, Hamilton Could Soon Get Engine Penalty

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has revealed that there are some engine reliability concerns which is why it was forced to take an engine penalty for Valtteri Bottas who had a new engine installed only at the last race in Italy. 

"At the moment we are reassessing the performance of the power units because we have question marks and therefore haven't decided which engines we'll call back into the pool," said team boss Toto Wolff.

Wolff revealed that the recent updates to the Mercedes engine had not been implemented to all its engine stockpile as it was still in the phase of understanding the performance and the issues. Mercedes has been pushing the limits of the power unit with the renewed challenge from Honda that's resulted in an extremely competitive Max Verstappen. 

"You need to have the right balance between making sure that you really sort out all the gremlins that you have in the power unit not only for this year but also for next year's power unit," Wolff added. 

Toto Wolff has said that Hamilton could also be in for engine penalties 
Photo Credit: AFP

Lewis Hamilton was also pretty much in the dark about the situation with the engines. 

"I've lost one engine, Valtteri's had several.  And there's been others that Mercedes have seen up and down the paddock. So I'm trying to treat my engines with absolute care when I'm driving, just really trying to minimise the laps that I do. But who knows? I can't control the future," Hamilton hypothesised. 

Even the Red Bull boss, Christian Horner suspected that Hamilton will likely be in for an engine penalty sooner than later which will bode well for his team. "If you see how many engines Mercedes has already consumed this year, including the sister teams, I do expect them to take another penalty. But we don't know that," said Horner, agreeing with the thoughts of his colleague Helmut Marko.