SUZUKA // Lewis Hamilton's Japanese Grand Prix nightmare intensified on Saturday when McLaren said their Formula One title contender would have a five-place penalty on the starting grid for a gearbox change.
"In P3 (final practice) today, we noticed abnormal gearbox oil pressure on Lewis's car which we believed we had corrected ahead of this afternoon's qualifying session," the team said in a statement.
"This afternoon, as we fired up Lewis's car several times in preparation for qualifying, we became aware that the symptoms were worse than we'd originally diagnosed. "A decision was later taken to change the gearbox ahead of tomorrow's qualifying session and the grand prix. As a result, Lewis will receive a five-place grid penalty for tomorrow's race."
Qualifying could not take place on Saturday due to heavy rain at Suzuka and was postponed to Sunday morning.
Hamilton, the 2008 champion who has failed to finish three of his last four races, has completed only a handful of laps so far after crashing in Friday's first practice and missing most of the second.
Like most drivers, he failed to set a timed lap in Saturday's final session. Hamilton is third overall, 20 points behind Red Bull's championship leader Mark Webber with four races remaining including tomorrow.
Meanwhile rain washed out final practice on Saturday and threatened later qualifying.
With rivulets of water flowing across the track and no signs of the skies letting up, the session to decide the starting grid hung in the balance.
"We don't think qualifying will start if it's this bad and we are not sure of the merits of running in these conditions," Mercedes GP team boss Ross Brawn told the BBC.
"It will be too dangerous. When the cars run they will not clear the water. I will be disappointed if we start qualifying in these conditions.
"We could have the grid decided by championship order, that's happened before, or for qualifying to take place on Sunday morning," he added.
Lotus technical head Mike Gascoyne agreed: "Our forecast is that the rain is going to get heavier," he said.
Hamilton, who crashed in Friday practice, described the conditions as unbelievable.
"Guys, this is just unbelievable. Pretty much impossible to drive out here. There are rivers everywhere," the 2008 world champion, one of five contenders for this year's title, said over the team radio on one attempted lap.
Spaniard Jaime Alguersuari ended the session with his name at the top of the timing monitors as one of only two drivers to set a timed lap.
The Toro Rosso driver lapped in one minute 55.902 seconds, 11.595 quicker than that of Virgin Racing's Timo Glock, but nobody was paying any attention to the times as the rain streamed down.
