Mercedes says Rosberg and Hamilton are well matched on engine life
Mercedes technical chief Paddy Lowe says that Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton will enjoy parity on power unit life heading into the last two races of 2016.
Lowe confirms that, as a result, neither driver has an advantage on performance or reliability, given the mileage already run by their remaining power unit elements.
“The situation is reasonably balanced across the two of them,” said Lowe. “Not ideal in either case, to be honest! But there are no factors between them that would create a performance advantage.
“As always we’re putting all our attention into making sure that we have two good cars and two good power units that will get to the end. Mexico was another two finishes, two cars home, which was great.”
Meanwhile, Lowe says it’s impossible to judge how close Red Bull and Ferrari might be to Mercedes at Interlagos next weekend.
“As usual I’m not going to predict anything! There are so many different factors. Mexico was a great weekend to illustrate that – from each session you could have picked a different winner, couldn’t you?
“It’s just a function of how people tune the car and the tires to the track conditions that apply at that moment. The way we deal with these tires at the moment, it’s just so sensitive to so many different parameters... You saw Ferrari with some huge frustration at their qualifying result. It’s not a bad car, as we saw in the race, but they just got something slightly wrong for qualifying.”
