Mercedes technical director James Allison admitted that the team is still working to understand what caused Lewis Hamilton’s retirement in Australia.
The seven-time world champion retired in the first part of the race due to an engine failure. The power unit has been sent to Brixworth’s facility to analyze what the issue was.
Despite having a rough idea of what caused the engine to shut down, Allison said that the root of the issue is still unclear. However, he added that as soon as the team finds it, everybody will start working to make sure it won’t happen again.
“The power units will return to the safe hands of the guys at Brixworth, who will be able to figure out what let go.
“All we know is the symptoms at the time, which were a rapid loss of oil pressure followed by a shutdown of the engine to protect it.
“When you know you’ve got catastrophic loss like that, the best thing you can do for the future is kill it there and then, and then you have not got like a load of molten metal.
“You have normally got a fairly clear evidence chain of what caused it, and then that lets you work better for the future. So, we do not know yet, [but] Brixworth and HPP [Mercedes High-Performance Powertrains] will do in short order.
“No doubt as soon as we know then they will jump to with their characteristic energy to make sure that any risk that happens on any other engine is mitigated as best we can.”