Hamilton pushed Mercedes engine 'to the limit' in pursuit of Vettel

Lewis Hamilton was pushing his engine to the limit while chasing Sebastian Vettel during the Australian Grand Prix, Mercedes have claimed. The world champion lost what looked to be a certain victory under the Virtual Safety Car when the Silver Arrows' technology let them down.

Vettel turned an extended opening stint into the overall lead of the race when Ferrari reacted sharply to Romain Grosjean's retirement.

Though Hamilton quickly got onto the Ferrari's gearbox, he was unable to pass, locking up on his first sight of an overtake before eventually backing off and finishing five seconds behind Vettel.

Teams are limited to just three engines in the 21-race calendar in 2018 and the Silver Arrows remain confident their first power unit remains up for the challenges ahead, despite Hamilton pushing it hard.

Speaking in Mercedes' Pure Pitwall show on YouTube, trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said: "You may have heard us on the radio telling Lewis it was getting hot, which is just the fact that when the cars get so close you don't get clean air going into the radiators keeping it cool.

"It did get quite close to its limit temperature, and we are monitoring all these limits very closely. You can run up to them, you just have to be careful that you don't run over them.

"In Lewis' case we were okay. We were just up around the limit and you heard Lewis on the radio hear that he couldn't get by and he was going to save the engine. Well at that point he just backed off and he was cooling the car.

"You can turn down the power of the engine so it is not having to work so hard, but we are pretty confident that the engine will be in good shape."

Shovlin admitted that Mercedes will not be clear as to whether the engine's lifespan has been affected by the season-opener until they arrive in Bahrain next week.

"We are limited in what tests we can do because we cannot actually run the engine, we are not allowed to, apart from when we get to Bahrain," he said.

"At the moment that is Lewis' only engine that we have in the engine pool. He will be running that engine in Bahrain and in China, and we will be monitoring them as we always do to ensure that everything is continually okay."