Hamilton counters Marko power unit claim

Lewis Hamilton has countered the claims of Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko by denying he will face further grid penalties this season through power unit changes.

Mercedes has struggled recently with reliability, with McLaren's Lando Norris now the only one of the eight drivers powered by the German manufacturer to have avoided a sanction this season.

Seven-time F1 champion Hamilton has already served one penalty for taking an extra internal combustion engine above the prescribed limit per year of three, while team-mate Valtteri Bottas has been hit with three separate penalties.

Marko is convinced Hamilton will have to take another penalty before the season is out, yet Hamilton has faith his pool of power units will last the distance.

“I believe our engines are strong and as far as I am aware we are hopefully going to the end," said Hamilton. "So that is not going to be an issue for us hopefully."

Despite commenting he would leave "no stone unturned" to defeat championship rival Max Verstappen in Mexico, Hamilton conceded the scale of the challenge this weekend.

“What I do know is that last time they out-qualified us here and they were down on power compared to us through the year," explained Hamilton, who finished half-a-second behind Verstappen after second practice.

"Now they’re ahead on power there or thereabouts and they’ve got a very strong car that has been affected less by the changes in the rules than we were, so they’re going to be rapid this weekend.

"Last time they were almost a second ahead of us. Our car is not better than last year’s car with the changes so it will be interesting to see how we fare this weekend.”

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