Lewis Hamilton has confirmed he will take a grid penalty for Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix after his Mercedes team replaced engine parts. He leads his team-mate, Nico Rosberg, by 19 points in the world championship, having won the last four races before Formula One took its summer break, overturning a 43-point advantage Rosberg had imposed after the fourth round in Russia. Hamilton will be looking to make damage limitation his task at Spa-Francorchamps with the team replacing engine parts after suffering technical problems earlier in the season.
“As far as I am aware we will be taking the penalty this weekend,” Hamilton said. “Naturally we already discussed engine penalties before, that will come into play but I will do everything I can to minimise the impact they have. Otherwise, beyond that penalty I think I will be able to continue with the momentum I had before the break.”
The British driver’s power unit failures cost him points in the early races from which Rosberg extracted maximum advantage – following his three wins at the close of the 2015 season with four at the opening of 2016. After the pair clashed in Spain to put one another out in the fifth round, however, Hamilton has been on a roll. He won six of the subsequent seven races and, in pursuit of his fourth title, put his team-mate firmly on the back foot.
Mercedes have confirmed he will take new power unit parts but have yet to reveal exactly which ones and in what number. They have stated they expect him to start from the back of the field or very close to it, while they and Hamilton had previously acknowledged that they would have to take the penalties, with the decision expected here or at the next round in Monza – both circuits from which recovery drives based on the Mercedes’ strong power advantage can be made.
He will still have his work cut out, though. John Watson’s drive for Hamilton’s former team, McLaren, at Long Beach in 1983 remains the benchmark for coming through the field in F1. He had started in 22nd, one spot ahead of his team-mate Niki Lauda, who is now an adviser at Mercedes, having failed to put enough heat into their tyres during qualifying. However, both drivers charged through the field on race day to take a one-two. Watson had taken 70 minutes to claw back 22 places, still the furthest back in the field from which a driver has won a grand prix.
Such an extraordinary result is not likely on Sunday and Hamilton was realistic about his chances, acknowledging that ensuring he made up as many places as possible was the principal objective. “I think in terms of winning, that is the goal but it will be very, very hard – the gap has closed between other cars,” he said. “It will be harder than it was last year or the year before to climb through the field. It will be about minimising the damage of taking a penalty.”
The 31-year-old is bidding for his 50th grand prix win and while the penalty means he will almost certainly have to wait until at least Monza, he has shown ample skill in recovery drives in the past. He was 24th on the grid at Barcelona in 2012 and finished eighth in a McLaren without the overarching dominance of his current Mercedes. That advantage demonstrated his capabilities amply in his first championship-winning year with Mercedes in 2014, when a fire in qualifying resulted in him starting from the pit lane in Hungary, a problem that was compounded by a spin on the first lap. However, some ballsy overtaking and a refusal to cede his position under team orders to Rosberg while manhandling a somewhat recalcitrant ride resulted in magnificent recovery to third place.
That was at the peak of Mercedes dominance under the new rules, though, and as he noted the pack has closed up since, although Ferrari were way off the pace at the last race in Germany, a full 30 seconds from Hamilton’s winning time. A top-four finish, is eminently possible then but better may require the safety car, mechanical problems for rivals and fair fortune from the weather, currently expected to be dry, although with Spa’s capricious microclimate that cannot be guaranteed.
The technical failures for which he is now having to pay largely cost him in qualifying, although again he did finish in the points in those races. He started 22nd in China and fought back to seventh and managed second from 10th in Russia. An error in qualifying at Baku meant he started from 10th and finished fifth but Hamilton was not willing to apportion blame for his current travails with the team.
“I don’t look at it as incompetence,” he said. “I find it a growing experience for us because we have learned a lot of lessons from the issues and hopefully we won’t have them again. I guess I’m the lab rat that’s tested all the issues.”
Rosberg, whose engine usage is within the parameters the team have planned for and does not currently expect to incur any penalties, was taking nothing for granted. “I still need to beat the opposition and even Lewis,” he said. “You always need to reckon on him because with a bit of luck or safety cars at the right moment there is no reason he can’t come from very far back on the grid, especially at a track like this where you can overtake very easily.”
The team are expected to confirm their decision regarding the new parts on Friday.
Hamilton has currently used the maximum allocation of five turbocharger and motor generator unit-heat components, replacing each alone would result in a 15-place penalty – 10 for the first sixth unit used and five for each subsequent items – but the concept of taking two entirely new power units in order to ensure a stock for the remainder of the season has been discussed by Hamilton and the team previously. Doing so would mean categorically that he would start from the back but he would take the penalty in one hit at this race.
