Hamilton set for Bahrain GP grid penalty

Lewis Hamilton will incur a five-place grid penalty at the Bahrain Grand Prix, Mercedes have confirmed. The world champion was affected by a hydraulic leak in Australia a fortnight ago and his team claimed that Hamilton was "fortunate to finish the race" in Melbourne.

The news gives the Silver Arrows a fresh headache after their dominance was seriously questioned at Sakhir on Friday.

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We had a hydraulic leak during the #AusGP and were fortunate to finish the race

Unfortunately the Team couldn’t repair the gearbox within the six race cycle so need to take a fresh one, incurring the grid penalty. #BahrainGP pic.twitter.com/DCTNr9D9TW — Mercedes-AMG F1 (@MercedesAMGF1) April 6, 2018

Valtteri Bottas was pole-sitter last year here, although Sebastian Vettel took victory and Ferrari looked to have the upper hand in one-lap pace in practice.

Kimi Raikkonen was fastest of all, with Vettel in close attention, but Bottas was half a second off the pace, with Hamilton further back after his flying run was curtailed by traffic.

Perhaps tellingly, Hamilton was told over team radio that his engineers were "interested" in picking up data while backed up.

On long-run race simulations, the Silver Arrows were behind not just the Scuderia, but also Red Bull.

Max Verstappen delivered the most consistent long-run times, and averaged around seven tenths of a second quicker than Hamilton.

It all points to a difficult second race of the season for the constructors' champions after a software "bug" denied them in Melbourne.

Hamilton looked set for an easy win at Albert Park after a dominant qualifying performance and good start to the race.

But Vettel sneaked into the outright lead of the race under the Virtual Safety Car, as Mercedes' systems let them down, and the German opened his season with a win for the second straight year.