Mercedes may be forced to turn down F1 engine at Austrian Grand Prix in boost to Lewis Hamilton

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Mercedes’ solution to their recent reliability woes in Formula 1 suggests that Lewis Hamilton may be in store for a second victory in Ferrari colours, just a couple of weeks after securing his first in Barcelona.

If Lewis Hamilton had already proved he was back to full form from the three podiums he had secured in the first six rounds of the 2026 season, his race-winning heroics at the Barcelona Grand Prix were the cherry on top.

Give us your podium prediction for the Austrian Grand Prix this weekend 👇

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The seven-time world champion executed an inch-perfect strategy to secure his first Grand Prix victory for the Scuderia, rolling back the years as he stretched out a 20-second gap to George Russell in P2 by the chequered flag – the biggest winning margin so far this term.

For the Silver Arrows, it was another frustrating weekend despite Russell’s clinching of second-best. High-flying teammate Kimi Antonelli had overtaken him for P2 in the dying embers of the 68-lap race, before immediately pulling over due to an engine failure.

• READ MORE: David Coulthard warns Mercedes’ reliability issues will only ‘get worse’ amid Ferrari battle

It marked the second battery issue that Mercedes experienced in three race weekends, with Russell suffering the same fate after leading the majority of the Canadian Grand Prix less than a month earlier.

With McLaren’s string of DNFs making it clear that there is a serious reliability issue with Mercedes’ 2026-spec power unit, a report by La Gazzetta dello Sport has shed some more light on how the Brixworth-based engineers plan on fixing it.

Mercedes’ solution for recent reliability woes could play into Lewis Hamilton’s hands in Austria

According to the Italian outfit’s report, Mercedes have ‘identified’ the cause of the recent failures that have affected the cars that are running their power units, and are now working on ‘definitive countermeasures’.

Lewis Hamilton is now only missing a Grand Prix pole position for Ferrari 🏆 Predict when it will come?

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However, such a solution is understood not to be ‘immediately implementable’, meaning engineers have been forced to come up with a short-term alternative that may not be the ultimate fix for the remainder of the championship.

In this scenario, the report highlights that engineers have opted for less ‘aggressive charging’ and ‘energy usage routines’ than what they were putting into practice beforehand. This, in turn, will inevitably result in a ‘slight reduction’ of the engine’s performance.

On the other hand, Ferrari are looking solely at improving their power unit from a performance perspective, having been granted a free upgrade token through the FIA’s new Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities (ADUO) initiative.

• READ MORE: George Russell saw Ferrari fix the problem they’ve had for years to help Lewis Hamilton win

That is expected to come in the form of a new-look engine compression chamber inside the SF-26, which should give Hamilton and his downbeat teammate, Charles Leclerc, a boost in straight-line speed.

According to the report, there is a lot of ‘confidence’ at Maranello over the upgrade helping Ferrari’s efforts to bridge the gap to their championship-leading rivals, starting from the Austrian Grand Prix.