F1: Lewis Hamilton Could Face Engine Penalty For Brazilian GP

Lewis Hamilton could be facing an engine penalty at the Brazilian GP which could strike a crippling blow to the defense of his world championship. Hamilton already trails Max Verstappen by 19 points but an engine penalty could mean that he qualifies beyond the top making it hard to score more points than the dutchman.

Hamilton could be looking at a 5-place engine penalty that could be announced at FP1 at the earliest. The Brazilian GP this weekend also features a sprint race which will be the last one of the season.

"I can't really comment at the moment. As far as I'm aware my engines are fine, but I will find out later on. I don't think the engines have even arrived this morning. We haven't even done an engineering briefing yet," he said at the F1 press conference at the Brazilian GP.

Hamilton strives to win an 8th record breaking world title

"Absolutely. I think people under-appreciate just how well we've done, considering the pace they have had since day one, since the struggles we had in testing before the season, just skimming by and winning that first race (in Bahrain)," he added.

"Then we had a couple of races (Portugal and Spain) where I just don't think they optimised and probably made more mistakes than they would have liked to. I think we've done a pretty good job, but at the end of the day we've not been as fast as them most of the time," the 7-time world champion revealed.

Mercedes is expected to do better than Mexico at Interlagos but if Hamilton gets a grid penalty then his chances of winning his 8th record-breaking world title are going to get scuttled. Already his teammate, Bottas has used 6 power units more than legal limit of 3 engines which has caused numerous grid penalties for the Finn.