Max Verstappen sent ominous warning with Mercedes ‘bullish’ over Lewis Hamilton issue | F1 | Sports

What transpired at the Yas Marina enraged the Silver Arrows team members and Hamilton himself, although the British driver has yet to speak publicly having missed an unprecedented eighth World Championship.

The 37-year-old had come from a 19-point deficit by winning the three races ahead of Abu Dhabi in Brazil, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, but only after engine reliability seemed to hurt his title chances throughout the season.

F1 regulations limited teams to a total of three main drive unit components for the 2021 season, but both Hamilton and teammate Valtteri Bottas often had to carry spares.

Hamilton has come through five ICEs during the season, resulting in a 10-place penalty in Turkey and a five-place loss in Brazil – although he then defied chances at Interlagos to record one of his biggest wins.

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Bottas has been forced to make six changes, while McLaren, Aston Martin and Williams, Mercedes’ customer squads, have all had to use a fourth powerplant in the final stages of the season.

This year sees a major overhaul of the rules of the sport, with teams being given an ‘engine freeze’ before the start of the season, putting extra pressure on the reigning constructors’ champions to fix any problems immediately.

But while team boss Toto Wolff has remained silent on the progress, McLaren CEO Zak Brown has issued an ominous warning to Verstappen and Red Bull that the Brackley-based team is confident given their predicament.

“I spoke to Toto about it last week. And he was quite optimistic,” Brown told Motorsport.com.

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“I think the power unit race is as close as ever, but I’m not worried about that.”

Brown also said that while Mercedes is positive, his own team also has cause for optimism after the way they’ve dealt with engine issues in 2021.

“They feel good about their development,” Brown explained. “Fortunately we had good reliability last year. As you know, there’s more than just the power supply that goes into reliability.

“I think our guys did a good job with the drive unit in the first year, so maybe reliability wasn’t as important to us as it was to others.”