Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMercedes

ERS problem sees Hamilton fail to set a time in qualifying

Lewis Hamilton will start from the back of the field for the Chinese Grand Prix having failed to set a time in qualifying.

The Mercedes driver reported a lack of power during his first lap in Q1 before the session was halted due to a crash for Pascal Wehrlein. Although a delay of over 20 minutes allowed Mercedes to investigate the problem, Hamilton was sent back out with the team unsure if it had cleared.

Mercedes was soon able to detect an ERS problem remained and Hamilton had to return to the pits and was eliminated without setting a lap time.

Although Wehrlein was also eliminated due to his incident - which saw the Manor driver crash on the pit straight having lost control of his car on a wet section of track - Hamilton is classified as last on the timing scenes due to sector times.

Hamilton had already been set to take a five-place grid penalty due to a gearbox change, ensuring he will start from last on the grid unless Mercedes opts to start from the pit lane.

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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.