Lewis Hamilton has been given the all-clear to race with his new-spec engine in Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix after Mercedes diagnosed the cause of Nico Rosberg’s power-unit failure.
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Rosberg has been forced to revert to the engine which he used at the last race in Spa after reporting a problem in final practice. And there were concerns that Hamilton, who starts from pole in Monza, would have to follow suit.
But an investigation conducted by Mercedes has determined that Rosberg had a leak in his engine’s cooling system, and as such, Hamilton’s engine will not have to be replaced ahead of Sunday’s race.
UPDATE: Overnight investigation has revealed the cause of @nico_rosberg‘s problem in #ItalianGP #FP3 yesterday… #F1 (1/3) #Monza
— MERCEDES AMG F1 (@MercedesAMGF1) September 6, 2015
This was traced to a leak in the cooling system which contaminated the Power Unit, not a problem with the engine itself (2/3) #F1 #ItalianGP
— MERCEDES AMG F1 (@MercedesAMGF1) September 6, 2015
The Power Unit will be inspected in the coming days to decide if it can be used again at future races (3/3) #F1 #ItalianGP #Monza
— MERCEDES AMG F1 (@MercedesAMGF1) September 6, 2015
Speaking after qualifying, Rosberg, who starts only fourth, says his race will be now severely hampered. Rosberg is expected to be down on power in relation to his team-mate.
The German, who is already 28 points adritft of Hamilton in the championship, said: “The engine is six races old so it has done a lot of mileage and engines degrade over time.
“It has definitely compromised my weekend and my race as well. My laps felt good and you can see that I lost a lot of time on the straights, so that makes it difficult. ”It’s not great because I need to start closing the gap in terms of points.”
