With Mercedes teasing its fans with what could be a possible front-row lock-out on Sunday, Lewis Hamilton’s five-place grid penalty is an unpleasant slap back to reality. However, Hamilton’s ICE has been a double-edged sword. Despite the drop, the pace on Hamilton’s machine has been a more than pleasant surprise. Although, there were a lot of questions surrounding the risky change in component; Toto Wolff came prepared to back his genius move.

Other than each other, Hamilton and Verstappen have reliability playing a big role in their championship battle. While the Milton-Keynes team sits comfortably with their Honda engine, Mercedes isn’t completely happy with theirs. And in a battle where a DNF could decide the title, no stone can be left unturned.

Toto Wolff explained that the engine degradation has been much higher this season. Without the fresh ICE, Hamilton’s season would’ve ended before reaching Jeddah. Wolff clarified the situation with the W12. “We have deg [degradation] on the engine that until the end of the season is just going to continue to decrease in power and we haven’t yet realized why that is, but we are just seeing it creep down.”

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The decision has clearly worked in Mercedes’ favor as Lewis Hamilton took over the qualifying session at the Interlagos at lightning speed. If this is what Mercedes is bringing to the last four races of the season, Red Bull may have something to worry about.

Mercedes hit heavily with engine degradation

Although the Silver Arrows have taken the most engine penalties this season, their engine has been very unreliable- an uncharacteristic problem for a team of their caliber. The Mercedes frontman explains how his team ended up in this predicament.

“Every engine is degrading and we’ve seen that over the past years over 1,000 kilometers there is a certain amount of kilowatts that the engine is degrading. And ours is just degrading much more than in the average of the past years and that increases from weekend to weekend.”

The ICE change also reassured the boss of his team’s performance for the weekend ahead. His only wish remains impossible- a start ahead of the grid. ” I think we have good straight-line speed, we’ve seen that today, so that gives us a little bit of a potential but I’d rather start right at the front of the race than needing to catch up and pass some of the cars that we have seen.”

Although the layout of the circuit allows for some thrilling overtaking, Hamilton shouldn’t have a problem joining the frontrunners in no time during the race. But first, it’s the sprint qualifying, which not only sets the grid for the Brazilian GP but also has some very important points up for grabs. Will the 5-place penalty pay off for Hamilton? We’ll soon find out.

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