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Mercedes avoids grid penalty for Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton will start the Russian Grand Prix from 10th position after his Mercedes team worked through the night to avoid a grid penalty.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1 Team W07

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1 Team W07

XPB Images

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1 Team
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1 Team W07
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1 Team W07
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1 Team W07

The British driver suffered an MGU-H problem during qualifying yesterday and was unable to take part in Q3, meaning he could manage no better than 10th place on the grid.

But although fitting replacement parts is allowed under Formula 1 rules, the Mercedes team's situation was complicated by the fact that it had been running a new fuel system this weekend.

With no spare parts on site, if the team had elected to revert to an older specification fuel system then that would have meant a pit lane start.

Private jet

Having elected to replace the MGU-H, the energy store and the control electronics, the team has also put Hamilton back on the power unit that he used at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

However, a new fuel system was flown out by private jet so it could be fitted in time before the race.

Mercedes explained how much effort had gone in to ensure Hamilton was good to start from the grid.

"Our entire approach has been guided by ensuring we do not break the parc ferme regs so Lewis can start P10 today rather than from pitlane, to give him the best chance of a strong finish," it said.

"The complication was in ensuring that we replaced with parts of the same specification, as we introduced an upgrade here for all eight power units, but did not have spare components on site.

"So we had to fly out a fuel system on a chartered jet yesterday evening, arriving here in the early hours, and the spare engine was then kitted with these parts during the night (the spare engine is not covered by parc ferme rules).

"When the car came out of parc ferme this morning, the spare PU was fitted and has now fired up successfully in the garage."

 

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