Hamilton grid penalty makes Mercedes competitive: 'Will be the last'

It was a fierce battle between Red Bull Racing and Mercedes in the first free practice session before the Brazilian Grand Prix. Red Bull seemed to be dominant for a long time, but in the end, Lewis Hamilton managed to finish the practice as the fastest. Toto Wolff is happy with that result but doesn't want to celebrate too soon.

Despite the fact that the seven times world champion ended the session with the fastest time there is still hope for Max Verstappen. Hamilton gets a five-place grid penalty for a new internal combustion engine. This was necessary according to Wolff.

"Until the end of the season, the engine is just going to continue to decrease in power and we haven't yet realized why that is, but we are just seeing it creep down. So, in terms of our simulations that is the right place to do it. I think that this is the final one that we need to take," the Austrian told Sky Sports.

Despite the grid penalty, the Mercedes team boss is satisfied with the result at the end of the first free practice session. "I think we have started on the wrong foot at the beginning of the session and the Red Bull's haven't run at the end. We have more performance to come that we now that we have in the pocket and at least its not as bad as it looked at the start of the session. This is another tricky one for us. Hopefully, the next few races I think we are back to competitiveness."