Lewis Hamilton’s engine problems are down to bad luck, Mercedes technical head Paddy Lowe said on Friday.
Triple Formula One world champion Hamilton retired at Sepang when his car’s engine suffered a fiery failure 16 laps from the end while he was leading the race comfortably.
He said afterwards that “someone doesn’t want me to win”, later clarifying that he was referring to a “higher power” and not the team.
More Formula One:
• F1 analysis: Fortune favours Rosberg but Hamilton has time to strike back in title race
• Graham Caygill: Hamilton has been here before: Do not give the F1 title to Rosberg just yet
• Race report: Ricciardo wins in Sepang as fuming Hamilton demands 'answers' over engine failure
Lowe said ahead of Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix, which Hamilton will start with a 23-point gap to teammate and championship leader Nico Rosberg, that it was just chance.
“We all know that you can throw three double-sixes in a row. That is possible, statistically. And yet when you see it done, emotionally you feel ‘how did that happen’? We have got a little bit of that scenario with Lewis,” he said.
“It is the way the dice have been thrown.
“Things do go wrong. We understand that and it just so happens that, by pure coincidence, that has occurred repeatedly on Lewis’ car.”
Lowe said Hamilton’s post-race comments had been misinterpreted.
“I can’t agree with you that the driver hinted there was sabotage,” Lowe said when asked about that. “Lewis has been very clear, certainly with us, that that’s completely out of the question.
“We’ve had other failures in the year that are very unfortunate and if we were good enough to arrange such sabotage we wouldn’t have any failures.
“We never ... would ever even contemplate it, even if we could engineer it, which we couldn’t. Anyone intelligent could work that out.”
Mercedes traced Hamilton’s engine failure in Malaysia down to a “big-end bearing failure” and have introduced measures to guard against further problems this weekend.
Hamilton, who converted a 43-point early-season deficit to Rosberg into a 19-point lead with a streak of six wins from seven races going into the August break, faces an uphill task in producing a similar comeback.
The Briton, who suffered a slew of engine-related problems earlier in the season while Rosberg won the first four in a row, needs to win on Sunday but also knows that the German has raised his performance.
Rosberg was fastest in both Friday practice sessions at Suzuka.
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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What drives subscription retailing?
Once the domain of newspaper home deliveries, subscription model retailing has combined with e-commerce to permeate myriad products and services.
The concept has grown tremendously around the world and is forecast to thrive further, according to UnivDatos Market Insights’ report on recent and predicted trends in the sector.
The global subscription e-commerce market was valued at $13.2 billion (Dh48.5bn) in 2018. It is forecast to touch $478.2bn in 2025, and include the entertainment, fitness, food, cosmetics, baby care and fashion sectors.
The report says subscription-based services currently constitute “a small trend within e-commerce”. The US hosts almost 70 per cent of recurring plan firms, including leaders Dollar Shave Club, Hello Fresh and Netflix. Walmart and Sephora are among longer established retailers entering the space.
UnivDatos cites younger and affluent urbanites as prime subscription targets, with women currently the largest share of end-users.
That’s expected to remain unchanged until 2025, when women will represent a $246.6bn market share, owing to increasing numbers of start-ups targeting women.
Personal care and beauty occupy the largest chunk of the worldwide subscription e-commerce market, with changing lifestyles, work schedules, customisation and convenience among the chief future drivers.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE Falcons
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Jetour T1 specs
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