Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Istanbul Park, 2021

Hamilton set for 10-place grid penalty after engine change

2021 Turkish Grand Prix

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Lewis Hamilton will have a 10-place grid penalty for this weekend’s Turkish Grand Prix after Mercedes fitted a new power unit to his car.

Mercedes has replaced the internal combustion engine only in his M12 power unit. This is his fourth of the season, exceeding the maximum of three, which brings an automatic penalty of 10 places.

Hamilton will also have a new exhaust this weekend, which is his third from a maximum of eight, and does not attract a penalty.

Asked yesterday whether he expected to exceed his allocation of power unit parts this weekend, Hamilton said: “At the moment, I still have number two and three, so I don’t envisage us having to take one at the moment. But that could change. Who knows.”

The stewards have also confirmed Ferrari have fitted a new complete power unit to Carlos Sainz Jnr’s car, meaning he will start from the back of the grid.

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Power unit components used so far

No. Car Engine Driver ICE TC MGU-H MGU-K ES CE EX
31 Alpine Renault Esteban Ocon 3 3 3 3 2 2 8
14 Alpine Renault Fernando Alonso 3 3 3 3 2 2 8
10 AlphaTauri Honda Pierre Gasly 4 4 4 4 3 3 7
33 Red Bull Honda Max Verstappen 4 4 4 4 3 3 7
55 Ferrari Ferrari Carlos Sainz Jnr 4 4 4 3 3 3 7
11 Red Bull Honda Sergio Perez 4 4 4 4 4 4 6
7 Alfa Romeo Ferrari Kimi Raikkonen 3 3 3 2 2 2 6
99 Alfa Romeo Ferrari Antonio Giovinazzi 3 3 3 2 2 2 6
77 Mercedes Mercedes Valtteri Bottas 5 5 5 4 2 3 4
16 Ferrari Ferrari Charles Leclerc 4 4 4 2 3 3 5
22 AlphaTauri Honda Yuki Tsunoda 3 3 3 3 3 3 5
4 McLaren Mercedes Lando Norris 3 3 3 3 2 2 5
47 Haas Ferrari Mick Schumacher 3 3 3 2 2 2 5
9 Haas Ferrari Nikita Mazepin 3 3 3 2 2 2 5
31 Williams Mercedes Nicholas Latifi 4 4 4 2 2 2 3
44 Mercedes Mercedes Lewis Hamilton 4 3 3 3 2 2 4
5 Aston Martin Mercedes Sebastian Vettel 3 3 3 3 2 2 4
63 Williams Mercedes George Russell 3 3 3 2 2 2 3
3 McLaren Mercedes Daniel Ricciardo 3 3 3 2 2 2 3
18 Aston Martin Mercedes Lance Stroll 3 3 3 2 2 2 3

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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22 comments on “Hamilton set for 10-place grid penalty after engine change”

  1. The chess match continues

  2. He better get pole position.

  3. Cue the articles on sunday evening raving about his “amazing” comeback even though the car is miles quicker than 80% of the field

    1. Miles quicker in his hands, yes. Did you see Bottas making any progress through the field in Russia?

      Just out of curiosity, in case he does make a comeback (and there’s no guarantee since we’ve seen him stuck behind Mclarens in recent races), would you prefer it not be reported/talked about?

      1. Remember Bottas at Monza?

      2. Remember Russell in that same car being as good, maybe even better than hamilton with it? He’s not just quick but has tons of racecraft

    2. Cue comments from the no-nothing-sphere downplaying anything Hamilton does even before it happens.

      1. I like comeback drives, but I think they must be taken with a grain of salt with those cars, I think it’s pretty obvious I’m a verstappen fan (but I also like other current drivers), but even I was disappointed with the likely 7th place before rain came after starting from the back, so when a driver starts from the back of the grid with a top car on a track you can overtake I have high expectations, no matter if it’s hamilton. And this is not even starting from the back, so higher.

        Indeed, bottas is often subpar at recovering but at monza he did well.

        1. @esploratore1 My point is let’s evaluate the actual race performance. Shouldn’t be a difficult ask.
          Yes Bottas has often been a negative benchmark, often unable to make the same progress back through the field when starting behind – at the Sakhir GP, Russell showed that up too. I think we can try to factor in the difference the car makes in terms of ease of passing but there’s simply no sense in which driver skill doesn’t play a factor, and in some instances it makes a huge (‘amazing’) difference.

        2. I like comeback drives, but I think they must be taken with a grain of salt with those cars

          @esploratore1 – I think you are spot on. And this does not extends to Mercedes and Red Bull only, but to any field leader, even McLaren. I say that because it’s a little frustrating to overlook a decent solid but unsparkling performance in favour of any DRS feast a top fielder can get.

  4. It’s interesting that despite being fast on the straights, competitive enough to fight Mercedes, race winners and all, no hints about McLaren adding PU parts to their pool.

    And yet we see the factory team taking 3 extra ICEs so far…

    It could be that Mercedes is testing new parts before engine homologation, but they wouldn’t do it to #44 car at this time of the game. I think…

    1. Or is this because the Merc factory team are still actually running more aggressive engine modes than the customer teams have access to?

  5. What I am missing is why Hamilton gets a 10 place grid drop while Leclerc, Verstappen and Bottas were due to start from the back of the grid in Sochi.

    1. I got the answer, albeit from a different site.

      1. @psynrg I hope you have a pleasant day. Stay away from the sour grapes.

      2. @psynrg You can read the sentence “Mercedes has replaced the internal combustion engine only in his M12 power unit” two different ways:

        1. Mercedes has replaced the internal combustion engine only – in his M12 power unit.
        2. Mercedes has replaced the internal combustion engine – only in his M12 power unit.

        I read the latter, and I misread that they changed Hamilton’s engine but not Bottas’. That’s why I felt information was lacking.

        1. I was also confused because the first sentence says “after Mercedes fitted a new power unit to his car.” Then the very next sentence says only the ICE was changed.

    2. Hamilton only replaced the ice. The others the complete set including hybrid parts.
      It remains to be seen if Mercedes replaces more later on.

      1. Amd then taking additional penalties instead all at once

        1. John Mitchell
          9th October 2021, 1:00

          Exactly. In effect Max V has not served his 3-place penalty for the stupid mistake taking out Lewis H and himself. Last race he took an engine placement penalty the same as everyone faces but that should have had nothing to do with a 3-place race penalty. At Turkey he should take the 3-place penalty otherwise he has not paid for his error however Red Bull will get away with it. Unfair to all other drivers/Teams. What this says is that if you get a penalty in a race and your are close to replacing an engine then take it in the next race so that your penalty is wiped out (apart from bad points on racing licence). Well done FIA.

  6. No point in changing everything for the sake of changing unless an absolute necessity, I guess.

    1. The strategy is, that you then have 1 additional unit for everything on the shelve, penilised in a race you couldnt win anyways. Also, it might be upgraded parts

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