Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has revealed that Mercedes are struggling with their starts due to a hardware issue.
During the opening race of the 2016 Formula One World Championship in Australia, despite a front row lock out for Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg it was the Ferrari pairing of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen who led the first lap due to a poor start from the Silver Arrows.
In Bahrain there was a repeat of this poor start, especially in regards to Hamilton.
‘We tend to believe it is more a hardware issue than a control electronics problem and you can’t solve that from one race to the other,’ Wolff told Sky Sports.
Hamilton had been quick to take full responsibility for the start: ‘I don’t think there was a particular issue, it just wasn’t a good getaway, nothing technical.’ Hamilton told motorsport.com.
However continuing his interview with Sky Sports Wolff disagreed: ‘I think it is more random than that. When you look at Nico’s start into the formation lap he made a mistake and chose second gear and went into anti-stall. So all that is possible and all that was the purpose of changing the regulations.’
Mercedes have begun work with parent company Daimler to build a new clutch solution, however it is not clear if this will be ready for the next round in China.
‘We are working to sort it out, the way we assess clutches and the way we round them, the way we calibrate them, obviously how the driver uses needs to be optimised, But mainly the collaboration with Daimler is about optimising the hardware and that takes a little bit of time. When we will have results I am not sure yet.’
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