Formula 1 Bahrain GP

Wolff: Mercedes F1 engine issues cost 0.5s per lap in Bahrain

Toto Wolff reckons Mercedes was losing 0.5 seconds per lap in the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix due to engine issues that also hobbled Formula 1 customer team Williams.

Matt Kew Jonathan Noble

Edited: Mar 4, 2024, 11:51 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

George Russell, Mercedes F1 W15

George Russell led the Silver Arrows charge with fifth place in Bahrain as team-mate Lewis Hamilton finished the season-opener in seventh, the pair having started third and ninth respectively.

Russell had climbed as high as second with an outside pass on Charles Leclerc on lap four to sit just 1.7s behind eventual dominant Red Bull winner Max Verstappen.

But his impressive start was undone by having to switch focus to nursing a power unit issue caused by a cooling miscalculation, which required lifting-and-coasting measures to combat rising temperatures. Hamilton was also hurt, further afflicted by a cracked seat.

The engine gremlins also disrupted power unit customer team Williams. Both Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant suffered, with the latter additionally coming to a stop with a temporary steering wheel electronics fault.

Asked by Motorsport.com to explain the reliability woes, Mercedes motorsport boss Wolff explained: "[Pre-season] testing was pretty good. Also, the performances on Thursday and on Friday were encouraging. The car was stable, was good. The drivers like it.

"When we started the race on the soft tyre, everything pretty much [was] to plan. And then, unfortunately, we had to start cooling the engine more than we expected. We can't understand yet where that came from.

"We have one of our customer teams, Williams, who had the same issue. The other two [McLaren and Aston Martin] not. That was unexpected."

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Wolff reckoned that the performance drop-off, thought to be a result of both engine overheating and a battery issue, and the preventative measures combined for a lap time loss of more than half a second per lap.

Russell finished 22s behind podium finisher Carlos Sainz and 47s behind Verstappen after the 57 laps.

The Austrian continued: "From then on, if you switch 0.3-4s of power unit performance off, then you have to lift-and-coast on top, so I think at times probably altogether it was 5 or 6 tenths of a second that we couldn't take from what the car had in it.

"Therefore, it just wasn't great fun… At times, we were literally not a few degrees, but like 10 degrees running over what we thought we should be."

Wolff, who reckoned the problems would be fixed in time for the Saudi Arabian GP this weekend, said the temperature spikes came independently of Russell and Hamilton running in the dirty air of traffic.

"I think, even without traffic, at the beginning, we were already over the limit," he explained.

"We don't know because we pretty much run the same cooling levels than on the long runs we did in the days before. It just spiked more than we thought.

"I don't believe that any other team opened the car more [with additional cooling vents] than they did before. So, it's a thing that was probably more with us."

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Leclerc had "more than 100 degrees split" in brake temperature in F1 Bahrain GP

Next article Christian Horner has no doubts over Red Bull F1 job security

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Iker Lecuona felt significant differences between Ducati's GP25 and GP26

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP

Qatar GP

8 min

Iker Lecuona felt significant differences between Ducati's GP25 and GP26

The Kimi Antonelli you don't know: Inside the Mercedes garage with F1's new world champion

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Mexican GP

1 h

The Kimi Antonelli you don't know: Inside the Mercedes garage with F1's new world champion

F1 driver contracts: How long is each driver tied down for?

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1 1 h

F1 driver contracts: How long is each driver tied down for?

IndyCar 2026 season review: ECR

IndyCar

Indy IndyCar 17 h

IndyCar 2026 season review: ECR

Feature

Discover prime content

Tough love and F1 titles – A key life lesson behind Wolff's Mercedes success

Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

By Ronald Vording

Tough love and F1 titles – A key life lesson behind Wolff's Mercedes success

How Brazil showcased everything that's good about F1 - plus some that isn't

Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

By Filip Cleeren

How Brazil showcased everything that's good about F1 - plus some that isn't

Top 10 F1 cars of the 1970s

Formula 1

By Kevin Turner

Top 10 F1 cars of the 1970s

Why Rafael Camara should take heart from a tough F1 debut in Brazil

Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

By Jake Boxall-Legge

Why Rafael Camara should take heart from a tough F1 debut in Brazil

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts