Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMercedes

Hamilton could miss FP2 at Sepang

Lewis Hamilton could miss FP2 for the Malaysian Grand Prix following a power unit problem on Friday morning.

Having completed just four laps, Hamilton pulled to the side of the track at Turn 9 due to a power unit issue which ended his running. Mercedes says it has now traced the issue to a specific component which is not part of the power unit limited to four per season, and as a result is trying to replace it to avoid using another engine.

"Investigations during the break have revealed a failure on the Power Unit inlet system of Lewis Hamilton's W06 Hybrid," Mercedes confirmed on Twitter. "This does not affect Lewis Hamilton's PU allocation for the season. Crew working hard to get him back out before the end of FP2."

Having failed to complete any meaningful running in the opening session of the weekend, missing second practice would put Hamilton on the back foot against team-mate Nico Rosberg, who was quickest in FP1.

Click here for Friday's gallery from the Malaysian Grand Prix

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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.