Is Mercedes fixing the 2016 driver chamionship

[AndyL]

I honestly think it is ridiculous to suggest Mercedes would intentionally scupper one of their cars, regardless of who the management would prefer to win they are a car manufacturer who value greatly their brand image. Engines blowing up does not bolster their brand image.

Agreed, even if Mercedes did want to hamper Hamilton, there's no way they'd do it in a way that's so spectacularly embarassing for the company.

I think Hamilton just intrinsically has bad luck. Remember back in the McLaren days, how people were constantly saying the only reason Button was close to Hamilton was that Hamilton was getting so much bad luck. It's probably his greatest weakness as a driver. Maybe he dropped a mirror on a black cat or was the victim of a gypsy curse or something. If it carries on like this, Mercedes will probably start thinking about dropping him and hiring someone luckier.

[Nem14]

What do you think guys and gals, is Mercedes fixing the driver championship?

No.
It's racing.
Engines, and other car components, are at operated at close to their design limits.

Lewis Hamilton is a juvenile like whiner, and of all the F1 driver's champions, the one I respect the least.
Hopefully, Lewis Hamilton will become an adult at some point in his life.

[Rollo]

There have been four failures of Mercedes engines due to heat stress in 2016; Hamilton's is but 1 of 4.

The thing that's stopping Hamilton from winning the 2016 championship is Lewis Hamilton.

Argue the Spanish GP now.

[henners88]

It's also worth mentioning here that Hamilton is a lot more valuable to the Mercedes brand in its market than Rosberg due to his image and appeal. I highly doubt Mercedes would sabotage his chances. It's just pure bad luck imo.


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[zako85]

And the engine in the Hamilton car was a new engine that has done only three races.

Only three races? ONLY? You gotta be joking. An engine that survived three races is already past half of its life.

[The Black Knight]

Only three races? ONLY? You gotta be joking. An engine that survived three races is already past half of its life.

Either way, as long as there are no more failures, he should be okay for the rest of the season.

[Jag_Warrior]

When I worked in the automotive supply business, I wouldn't have tried to explain defective products going to one customer or another as being down to luck. Trying that would have resulted in a customer enforced product quarantine action, and suggested that the process was (statistically) "out of control". In large lot manufacturing, there is a certain minimum process capability that is mandated, with an associated (predictable) defect rate. And if done correctly, failure modes (and their severity) can be ranked and predicted. Mercedes clearly has some quality control issues within its F1 operation. And while I don't believe that any higher power (whether it be Mercedes management or God) is responsible for Lewis' odd race weekend engine failures, I don't reject the possibility that something fishy could be happening within the Mercedes quality control processes. Not necessarily something nefarious, but certainly something that should not be happening. I have no doubt that Mercedes is asking some hard questions and doing a deep dive investigation as we speak. This looks bad on not just the F1 team, but the entire Mercedes brand. One of the reasons that I passed on the AMG CLA 45, and chose a different high performance sedan, is because I became aware of some quality issues with the highly stressed turbo 4 in the AMG. That is not a reputation that Mercedes wants to become widespread. At the end of the day, this is a marketing exercise for Mercedes - and Sunday's fireball was a PR disaster.

Anyway, in this case, Mercedes doesn't really do large lot manufacturing. It's more small batch or one-off. So the extrapolated parts per million defect rates and process capability measures may not be entirely accurate. But I have no doubt that they employ some of the most advanced manufacturing and inspection techniques (with no regard to cost - which makes the process very unique) on planet Earth. That one driver would be experiencing catastrophic failures, and not others, would make even a skeptic look at the manufacturing and quality control systems more closely.

[N4D13]

There have been four failures of Mercedes engines due to heat stress in 2016; Hamilton's is but 1 of 4.

This.

If there are 3 mechanical breakdowns on Mercedes cars in a season and both drivers have the same probability of issues occurring, there is a 12.5% chance that they affect exclusively Lewis, or one out of eight. That is certainly not what you would call a slim chance.

[The Black Knight]

This.

If there are 3 mechanical breakdowns on Mercedes cars in a season and both drivers have the same probability of issues occurring, there is a 12.5% chance that they affect exclusively Lewis, or one out of eight. That is certainly not what you would call a slim chance.

To list Lewis's failures:

An ERS failure at the start of qualifying in China, relegating him to 22nd on the grid. He finished seventh.
An ERS failure during Q3 in Russia, restricting the Mercedes driver to 10th on the grid. He finished second.
An engine mode issue during the European GP. He finished fifth having started in 10th following a crash in qualifying.
A hydraulics fault during Practice Two in Singapore which was cited as a critical factor in his defeat to Rosberg. He finished third.
An engine blow-out in Malaysia which cost him an almost-certain victory.

So, on the overall, he has at least 40 points, potentially more, which is quite a huge net different to Nico. Nico, on the other hand, has only lost 3 points, at the British GP due to reliability that I can remember - I don't believe he has had any further reliability issues that cost him points. Nico has gained at least 30 points for these so really we're talking about a 50 point swing were it not for reliability. But that is motor racing and, in all my time watching F1, I can't remember the best driver in a dominant ever not winning the championship. Whether that happens this year or not remains to be seen.

[N4D13]

If you mention Hamilton's engine mode woes in Europe, it would be convenient to remind readers that Rosberg suffered the very same issue during the race. In fact, at least for Nico, it was not the first time that it occurred - (at least) so he's suffered at least two engine mode failures.

As for the hydraulics failure in Singapore, that is a fair point - but keep in mind that we don't know about every technical issue that affected either driver during practice, so we can't really draw any conclusions from that. I highly doubt that the team is interested in divulging all the technical issues that their cars suffer unless it's unavoidable.

Now for the math part: out of a total of six technical issues (one for Rosberg and a total of five for Hamilton), the probability that Lewis suffers five or six is 15.6% (B(6, 0.5)). If we choose to count also Rosberg's previous engine mode failure, we have five failures for Hamilton out of a total of seven: the probability of this or worse for Lewis would be 22.7% (B(7, 0.5)). So when you consider all the cases that you've mentioned, it turns out that it's even MORE likely that Lewis is getting the shortest straw.