Lewis Hamilton’s weekend got a little worse tonight when McLaren confirmed that he needs a gearbox change before tomorrow’s qualifying.
He thus goes into the 10am session knowing that he will have a five-place grid penalty.
A team statement said: “In P3 today, we noticed abnormal gearbox oil pressure on Lewis’s car, which we believed we had corrected ahead of this afternoon’s qualifying session.
“This afternoon, as we fired up Lewis’s car several times in preparation for qualifying, we became aware that the symptoms were worse than we’d originally diagnosed, and a decision was later taken to change the gearbox ahead of tomorrow’s qualifying session and the Grand Prix.
“As a result, Lewis will receive a five-place grid penalty for tomorrow’s race.”
Hamilton did only a few laps yesterday after his morning crash and only ran briefly in the wet this morning.
Adam Cooper F1 
There’s an old saying about luck leveling out in the end and Hamilton is finally starting to experience that.
Since he came into the sport he’s been one of the luckiest a**es I’ve even seen. A few of the incidents I can recall – getting his car picked out of a gravel trap and put back in the race. Getting a puncture, not only right at the pit entrance but also within the normal pit stop window, and losing next to no time for the tire change. Dodging penalties for infractions that resulted in the rules immediately being strengthened to prevent a re-occurance. Virtually perfect reliability from the car. It never ends.
What’s that British saying? Now he’s “come a cropper”, or something like that. I’m actually starting to feel sorry for the guy.
Is that broken gearbox new one which Lewis started to use from FP3?
He retired in singapore so he could use a new gearbox from today by article 28.6a of sporting regulations.
If it were, he would be forced to change the gearbox used just a few laps in FP3 with new another. It’s really too bad for him.