Hamilton To Drop Five Places

- Published on Oct 9th, 2010 by Adam Milleneuve

What has the 2008 champion got to do?  He was looking great for solid shot at the 2010 title, yet he's crashed out of the last two races, due to him and not the car, he's smashed up his McLaren in practice 2 for this weekend's race and now he's been handed a five-place penalty following a gearbox change.

It may not be the end of the world for the ex-champ, and he's one of the raciest of the bunch when it comes to making up places in the race, but he's not made it very easy for himself - 20 points shy of championship leader Webber, he needs the points this weekend, as do Vettel and Button to still have a realistic chance of glory come the chequered flag in Abu Dhabi.

Elsewhere in the paddock, all the drivers supported the decision to suspend qualifying, which isn't surprising at all - the highlight of the coverage was seeing the Virgin Racing drivers playing poker, loads of the engineers setting off boats down the pit lane and Mike Gascoyne getting quite annoyed at being soaking wet thanks to Ted Kravitz who was desperately trying to fill air time for the BBC.