Hamilton backs TUE usage
SEPANG: World champion Lewis Hamilton waded into the Bradley Wiggins row on Thursday by backing the use of controversial “Therapeutic Use Exemptions” (TUES), providing they are administered properly.
Hamilton, who has suffered with severe pollen allergies in the past, said he didn’t have any TUES at the moment but added the matter was “very personal stuff”. “It’s not an unfair thing, it’s a perfectly normal thing,” said Hamilton ahead of Sunday’s Malaysian Grand Prix.
British cycling great Wiggins was revealed by a doping data hacking group calling themselves “Fancy Bears” to have been granted a TUE to treat asthma. BUTTON ELATED OVER JOINING 300 CLUB Mclaren’s Jenson Button admitted on Thursday he thinks it “unbelievable” that he will become only the third member of an exclusive club when he starts his 300th grand prix in Malaysia this weekend.
The 36-year-old will join Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello in the 300 club, provided he makes it away from the grid at Sepang on Sunday.
ALONSO TO GET 30-PLACE GRID PENALTY
Mclaren’s Fernando Alonso is set to start Sunday’s Formula One Malaysian Grand Prix from the back of the grid as he tries out an upgraded Honda power unit in practice on Friday.
Rules permit a driver to use no more than five complete power units and their constituent components over the course of a season. Running the upgraded power unit will result in Alonso taking on new variants of five of the six components that comprise it, which will cost the Spaniard 30 places on the 22-car Sepang grid.
He took a similarly hefty engine-related penalty in last month’s Belgian Grand Prix.