Baku, Sep 15 (IANS) Lewis Hamilton of Mercerdes and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon will start the Azerbaijan Grand Prix from the pit lane after taking multiple new power unit elements following qualifying, breaching their allowances for the season.
Mercedes driver Hamilton had qualified for the race in seventh on Saturday but has now installed a fifth Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) of the season on his W15. The Briton has also taken on a fifth turbocharger (TC), fifth MGU-H and a fifth MGU-K.
For Alpine’s Ocon, who has endured a turbulent weekend so far on what will be his 150th Grand Prix, he has also taken on a new ICE, TC and MGU-H to breach his allowances for the season. However, the Frenchman had qualified last on Saturday after being plagued with reliability woes across a number of sessions.
Mercedes drivers George and Lewis had a tough qualifying session on Saturday, struggling with traffic and tyre warm-up. In the end they finished fifth and seventh respectively and will start Sunday’s race from the third and fourth rows of the grid respectively. Charles Leclerc will start from pole position, with Oscar Piastri alongside him on the front row of the grid.
“Yesterday, the car was amazing, it felt great and I honestly think it could have been at least on the second row today. But we came today and all of a sudden the tires didn’t work well today,” said Lewis Hamilton to Sky Sports F1 post-qualifying.
Hamilton and Ocon will be alongside Lando Norris at the back of the grid after the McLaren driver was unable to get out of Q1 after Ocon’s crash caused a yellow flag and the championship contender did not get the chance to record another lap.
Norris was set to start at 17th in Baku but the McLaren championship challenger will now climb to 15th courtesy of Gasly and Hamilton’s penalties.
The penalised drivers, plus Norris – and many others on the grid – will hope they can move up the order in the race with overtaking opportunities aplenty around the street circuit in Azerbaijan.
–IANS
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