After the loss of Valtteri Bottas during the Eifel Grand Prix , all hopes of a World Championship appear to be gone. The Finn RETIRED with a problem on his engine, which forced him to park the car in the garage. James Vowles has explained what the problem with Bottas was.
"At the end of the VSC Bottas complained that he had no power. We could see on the data that the MGU-H was not working correctly. As a result, we had a lot less speed. So we tried a number of changes on the steering wheel with Valtteri, which could have brought the systems back to normal,” explained Vowles in the Mercedes debrief.
No penalty for Bottas?
That did not happen, however, so the Bottas race was finished. "After Those changes, it Became Clear That the whole part had just broken down and that's why We brought him in to stop. It had to be done quickly Because it was probably something electronic. If you drive for a long time With That problem, it can cause even more damage to other parts of the car."
Despite the retirement Vowles still sees an opportunity to replace some parts. "There is now a chance that we won't be penalized if we replace engine parts at Valtteri. We'll still check everything for Portimao, but we don't expect penalties if we have to replace things," said Vowles.