Hamilton facing five-place grid penalty in Austria

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Lewis Hamilton's hopes of closing the gap on his championship rival Sebastian Vettel in this weekend's Austrian Grand Prix have taken a blow.

Hamilton led both of Friday's practice sessions at the Red Bull Ring. That set him up with a strong chance of taking pole position for Sunday's race.

But news emerged in Spielberg on Friday evening that Hamilton had been forced to make a gearbox change. That comes with a five place grid penalty. It would mean he could start this weekend's race no higher than sixth place on the grid.

A note from the FIA's Jo Bauer read: "The above driver did finish the last race in Baku and this gearbox change was before the six consecutive events expired.

Hamilton stays in charge in second practice

"As this is not in compliance with Article 23.5a of the 2017 Formula One Sporting Regulations, I am referring this matter to the stewards for their consideration.

"The team informed the technical delegate about the gearbox change on Tuesday, 4 July 2017, at 11:29 hours."

Indeed, the team was apparently aware of the issue, having discovered that the gearbox had been damaged in Baku, and subsequently informed the FIA well in advance of the replacement. Mercedes confirmed however that the damage was not related to the Vettel incident.

Any untimely replacement of the unit automatically results in a five-place grid penalty. The sanction means that Hamilton will start no higher than sixth on Sunday.

The penalty has not yet been confirmed. However, it is virtually unavoidable after being referred to the stewards.

Hamilton is 14 points behind behind Vettel in the Formula 1 world championship standings. He lost ground to Vettel after the controversial Azerbaijan Grand Prix where Vettel was penalised for making intentional contact with Hamilton.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.