Mercedes have confirmed that a suspension failure caused Lewis Hamilton’s qualifying spin, potentially costing him pole position.
The Briton was on his final flying lap of the session and looked set to post a competitive time worthy of a front-row position before he span toward the end of the lap.
Upon recovering the car back to the pits, Mercedes found a fractured wishbone which they believe was the issue – though they’ve yet to determine why it’s fractured.
“When we got the car back, we had fractured a wishbone so that’s why he lost control of the car,” confirmed team principal Ross Brawn.
He’s not sure whether the part suffered a manufacturing fault or whether it’s the harsh kerbs which caused the problem, but he’s not expecting it to cause a problem during the race.
“It’s a circuit where there is a lot of grief over the kerbs and so on and we’re going back through the data to understand what may have provoked it.
“It’s a system we have had for a long time with no problem so it may be an issue with that particular part or it may be an issue with the way that we are taking some kerbs or some particular event.
“I don’t think there is any high risk for tomorrow and we should be able to fix it in parc ferme and race OK tomorrow.”
