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Hamilton to drive 'new' Merc in Hungary

BUDAPEST, Hungary - Lewis Hamilton will be at the wheel of a shiny new Mercedes at the 2014 Hungarian GP on Sunday (July 27).

Team boss Paddy Lowe was quoted by Auto Motor and Sport as revealing that "pretty much everything" was damaged when a fuel leak set the championship-chaser's race car on fire during Hungaroring qualifying.

With full spare cars no longer allowed, Mercedes mechanics worked through Saturday night to build Hamilton a new car from scratch on a spare monocoque.

WILL IT BE READY?

Hamilton will not effectively be penalised for changing his gearbox and engine, as he was already at the very back of the grid for the race, so Lowe decided simply to break parc ferme regulations.

Lowe said: "We needed to get the car out of parc ferme and rebuild from scratch if we wanted to be ready in time. We can look later to see what components (from the qualifying car) have survived."

Hamilton will start the race from pits lane.

The news was even worse for Hamilton, already 14 points behind team mate Nico Rosberg in the Drivers' points.

The lost engine in Hungary meant Hamilton was now on his fourth set of components for the season out of a maximum five for 2014 before penalties began to apply.

He said: "Yeah, unbelievable. Now the important thing is to see how I can come out of it - that's the really important point."

2014 Hungarian Grand Prix:
Qualifying
First practice
Second practice
Third practice

Stay with Wheels24 for the 2014 Hungarian GP this weekend.
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