Wolff reveals unexplained power decrease forced latest Hamilton engine penalty

Toto Wolff has revealed that an inexplicable decrease in power due to degradation forced Mercedes into another change of the internal combustion engine in Lewis Hamilton's car.

Team principal Wolff does believe, however, Hamilton's five-place grid penalty at the São Paulo Grand Prix will at least be his last of the season.

Mercedes' reliability woes had caused concerns over the prospects Hamilton could reach the end of the season with his current PU components.

Rumours swirled ahead of first practice at Interlagos as to whether the seven-time champion would take a hit here ahead of the final sprint trial of the season, with Hamilton himself unsure in his FIA press conference.

The ICE change was confirmed five minutes into the first practice session of the weekend, with Wolff telling Sky Sports F1 the reasoning behind taking the punishment now.

"We feel that we can score more points," said Wolff. "We have deg on the engine that until the end of the season was just going to decrease power and we haven't yet realised why that is."

Asked how many engines were left in Hamilton's allocated pool, Wolff replied: "Two - just the new one and the current one. I think this is the final one we need to take."

On whether Hamilton will have the opportunity to fight for the podium at Interlagos, he continued: "Well, we hope so.

"Obviously, Saudi looks like a good opportunity, too, but we think by then, the motor is going to lose more power so in terms of our simulations, this is the right place to do it."

Wolff explains Mercedes degradation issues

The issue with Mercedes' systems has been more focused on linear degradation rather than catastrophic failures, as tended to be the case for manufacturers at the beginning of the turbo-hybrid era.

"Without going into specifics, every engine is degrading and we have seen that over the past years that over 1000km, there is a certain amount of kilowatts that the engine is degrading," added Wolff.

"Ours is just degrading much more than the past few years and that increases from weekend to weekend. If we keep the engine, for sure we will not be competitive in Saudi or Abu Dhabi."

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