Lewis Hamilton has been handed a five-place grid penalty after a gearbox change ahead of the Australian Grand Prix.
Unfamiliar grid slot for defending champion
Lewis Hamilton has been handed a five-place grid penalty after a gearbox change ahead of the Australian Grand Prix.
The defending World Champion had just scraped into the second session of qualifying on Saturday, but a gearbox problem meant he could not take part.
That meant that Hamilton would line-up from a career-worst 15th place on the Albert Park grid.
However, McLaren Mercedes decided a gearbox change was necessary and that move incurred a five-place penalty.
Hamilton was initially sent to 20th place, however, penalties subsequently earned by Toyota drivers Timo Glock and Jarno Trulli have bumped him up two positions.
Catastrophy
"A gear catastrophically failed," McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh told reporters.
With team-mate Heikki Kovalainen starting 12th, the result confirmed that McLaren have work to do on their MP4-24 car, which has struggled in pre-season testing.
"The reality is that we've made progress in the past couple of weeks, but clearly not enough," Whitmarsh added.
"There's more to come, though, and everyone at Woking, Brixworth and Stuttgart is working as hard as they can to turn things around in the shortest time possible."
Hamilton was trying to remain positive despite his worst ever qualifying performance.
New Challenge
"I don't really have a game plan, just go for it," he said. "It can't really get worse than last place so we'll do the best job from there.
"We are a bit quicker than some of the other guys in front of us and we have to make sure that we extract the best from our strategy.
"It's a challenge and I'm looking forward to it. I'm determined to drive an attacking race - we'll have some fun tomorrow.
"If you look at the Ferraris last year they had a pretty bad race, with one starting dead last, yet they still got a point, so anything can happen.
"If there are only seven cars that finish again, I have to hope I'm one of them."
Hamilton's usual place in the limelight has been taken by fellow Briton Jenson Button after he put his Brawn GP car on pole, but Hamilton was keen to congratulate him.
"My congratulations to Jenson and everyone at Brawn GP - they have done a fantastic job all weekend and have a lot to look forward to tomorrow," he added.
