Despite Austria win, Mercedes need to tackle reliability

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said at one stage it looked as though both Mercedes cars wouldn't finish the Austrian Grand Prix.

Mercedes may have taken top honours in the season-opening Austrian Grand Prix, but the 71 laps revealed reliability gremlins which have been a concern since pre-season testing.

Team Principal Toto Wolff said the problems were related to the gearbox and caused headaches. “The situation was pretty serious,” he said, adding that it had the potential to end a race instantly.

“We know that it was linked to the vibration of the car which is why we asked both drivers to keep off the kerbs,” he said, referencing constant radio messages that were played throughout the race on TV coverage.

At one point, Wolff said, he was not confident both Mercedes would be able to finish the race.

The team’s drivers shared similar sentiments. Race winner Valtteri Bottas said Mercedes needed to get on top of reliability while Lewis Hamilton, who finished fourth in Austria, described it as a “real issue”.

The reliability gremlins presently faced by Mercedes are ultimately not new.

During February’s tests, the team missed running on day two because of an electrical issue while almost the entire afternoon of the fifth day was abandoned because of an oil pressure issue.

The team’s technical director, James Allison, said as testing concluded Mercedes “clearly still have some more work to do on the reliability to get us up to the standard that we expect by the start of the season”.

Wolff commented about the issues ahead of the Australian Grand Prix that was called off, saying of testing, “we faced some reliability issues that we needed to resolve.”

Reliability has proved, at times, to be an Achilles heel for the Brackley-based Silver Arrows.

At the 2014 Canadian Grand Prix, Red Bull broke an effortless run of six Mercedes victories when Nico Rosberg brakes gave way.

Fast-forward to the same race five years later just minutes before the start, Mercedes were questioning whether Lewis Hamilton would even be able to contest the race.

“We were not even sure that we’d make it to the race or whether the car would finish,” Team Principal Wolff commented at the time.