Mercedes hopes to avoid Rosberg gearbox penalty

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Mercedes is "optimistic" Nico Rosberg will not need to take a gearbox penalty at this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix.

Rosberg lost seventh gear during the closing laps of the British Grand Prix, and later received a time penalty after being informed to avoid seventh but to shift through it to eighth. Rosberg managed to finish the race in second place but the penalty demoted him to third behind Max Verstappen.

Despite the reliability concern, Mercedes says it will use the same gearbox from Silverstone during Friday practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix "and are optimistic it will be [okay]."

A change of gearbox before the end of a six-race cycle results in an automatic five-place grid penalty. Rosberg last received a new gearbox at the Austrian Grand Prix - two races ago - as a result of a crash suffered in FP3, which also saw him receive a penalty.

Rosberg has seen his championship lead cut from 43 points over team-mate Lewis Hamilton following the Spanish Grand Prix to just one point after Hamilton's win at Silverstone.

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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.