Hamilton will take a 10-place grid penalty for Sunday’s race after Mercedes opted to fit a fourth internal combu⛎stion engine (ICE) into the seven-time world champion’s car amidꦕ concerns over the reliability of its power unit. 

The aim for Hamilton will be to get as 🀅far🦄 up the order to limit the damage to title rival Max Verstappen, with the Red Bull driver just two points behind him in the world championship standings heading into the final seven events. 

After Hamilton topped both practice sessions at Istanbul Park on Friday, Mercedes trackside engine🦹ering director Andrew S🦋hovlin revealed the team had selected Turkey for the engine penalty because it believed it the circuit would present Hamilton with the best opportunity to recover positions in the race. 

“It’s difficult because you could look at it and say Mexico, normally Red Bull are very ꦑstrong there, the Honda’s a strong power unit,” Shovlin said. ❀;

“Would we resign ourselves to the fᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚact that we can’t beat them? But equally, if you’re not competitive, then it’s harder to fight through the field.

“Thi🅷s is a circuit that we thought the car would work well at and give us a good chance of attacking. But the midfield is fast now, so it’s quite difficult to over💞take anywhere.

“But it’s more that philosophy of do you do it where you don’t think you’re going to be q𝓰uick or do you do it where you think you’re going to be quick? 

“On Sunday, weꦉ’ll find out whether we’ve made a good decision or not.”

Shovlin explained that Merce𝓡des carried out a normal programme with Hamilton on Friday with the aim of him qualifying “as far up the grid as possible” in order to boost his fightback chances. 

“Whether we can get Lewis back on the podium, th𒁃at’s often defined about what happens𒀰 in the first stint, whether you can pick off some of those cars,” Shovlin said. 

“Beca🅷use throughout that stint, the race leaders are always getting away from you. It was very difficult to predict how well we’d get through traffic in Sochi. It was difficult just because we were understeering in the final secto🔯r, and that made it quite hard.

“Probably the hardest thing to simulate is really how close can you actꦐually follow. Can you sit in someone’s gearbox without killing the tyres, without losing so much downforce t⛎hat you can’t stay there?

“And that’s the bit that’s really difficult to preܫdict.”

Asked what Mercedes had learned on Friday, Shovli💧n replied: “Overtaking is pretty hard. 

“It’s often a bit more difficult in the free practice sessions because you don’t run long stints on thﷺe tyres. You don’t get differences in degradation building up.

“So on that side, today’s in𒐪dications are probably it’s a bit tougher than we would like. But you don't always get what you want.

“What we’ve also seen is that the car is working really well. Both drivers have had a stron🐻g day, wh꧃ich is good.

“As much as the drivers’ championship draws everyone’s focus towards what is🎉 going on with Lewis, with Valtteri [Bottas], the objective is quite clear that we need to get pole and we want to win the race.