HAMILTON’S PLANS HIT BY ENGINE FAILURE

LEWIS HAMILTON suffered a setback in his preparations for the Dutch Grand Prix when he broke down in practice yesterday afternoon. To roars of delight from rival Max Verstappen’s supporters, the Briton pulled over at Turn 8 with engine failure — a rare malfunction for the world champion team. And with the Mercedes engine of Sebastian Vettel’s Aston Martin blowing up in the morning, causing a 37-minute delay, Hamilton has completed just 20 laps at the redesigned circuit and missed out on collecting as much data as he would have wished to. He spent the final few minutes of action back in the Mercedes garage sitting alongside team principal Toto Wolff. ‘I just lost power so they told me to stop,’ said Hamilton. ‘I only got 20 minutes of running this morning with the red flag so it puts us on the back foot but Valtteri (Bottas) looked like he had a good session so hopefully tomorrow we can make up for the lost time. ‘The track is epic. It is really fantastic. It brought back memories from Formula Three. It is crazy in a Formula One car. ‘The speed we are going through Turn 7 is insane. I don’t think you will be able to overtake because it is high downforce with super-fast corners that you probably will not be able to follow through.’

The long hiatus brought about by Vettel’s breakdown — and the light showing the car was still electrically live — was just what F1 did not need after the farce of the rain-hit Belgian Grand Prix, in which only two laps were completed. Four-time champion Vettel (above) played the part of fireman by helping the marshals to extinguish the flames. It then took half the session for his Aston Martin to be taken back to the pit lane. Verstappen, who trails Hamilton by three points with 10 races remaining, finished the day fifth fastest.