Lewis Hamilton's chances of victory at the Bahrain GP have taken a blow as the world champion will take a five-place grid drop for Sunday's race.
The FIA confirmed late on Friday that Mercedes have had to change the gearbox in the Briton's car for this weekend, a part which under the regulations has to complete six race weekends before a free change is allowed.
It was another setback on a difficult day more broadly for Hamilton, who struggled to get a clean lap together in practice and ended the day almost a second off the pace set by Ferrari in fourth.
“It looks very close between all the teams and we definitely have got some work to do to try and see if we can eke out to be ahead of the others,” he commented before the penalty was announced.
“The tyres have felt the best they’ve felt here in years; very stable and with less degradation. The track is great and it’s amazing at night-time,” the 33-year-old added.
Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff also wasn't too deterred by the pace of Ferrari, who he believes were running quite close to their maximum.
“They were in a pretty high-power mode when they were on the lap, so it isn’t so worrying, but it is a good lap,” the Austrian told Sky Sports.
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Asked how he could be sure of that, he added: “It’s quite amazing. We have GPS data, so you can follow the traces of every car.
“You can see that when you overlay the data, suddenly on the straights they gain much more time and in the corners, it’s still the same.
“You can see that in detail, so it’s become very transparent for the engineers how much somebody has turned up the power, and how much downforce, and how much drag everyone is running.”
