SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium -- Lewis Hamilton says his 19-point championship lead over Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg is under threat at the Belgian Grand Prix as he faces a 30-place grid penalty on Sunday.
No matter where he qualifies on Saturday, Hamilton is almost certain to start from the back row of the grid for Sunday's race after new power unit components fitted to his car in Friday practice took him over his quota of turbochargers and MGU-H units for the season. By fitting the new power units during practice this weekend, Mercedes is sacrificing Hamilton's Spa grid position in the hope he will then have enough components in reserve to avoid further penalties later in the year.
The reigning world champion will have to fight from the back of the grid as a result, but believes Spa-Francorchamps is not the ideal track to mount a comeback drive.
"It's so hot and the tyres are not lasting very long, so everyone has to do two or three pit stops or whatever it is," he said. "There is going to be very little I can do, it's not like I can do a one stop and get through the crowd like the Force Indias and Ferraris have done at some stage.
"It's really hard out there, and unfortunately this is not the best weekend for me to have all the penalties, but it is what it is and I didn't have any engines left. I'll just do the best job I can with it and hope for the best."
If Rosberg wins Sunday's race and Hamilton finishes eighth or lower, Rosberg will hold a single point advantage heading to the next race in Monza. Last time Hamilton started in last place in China he finished seventh, but he is not convinced he will be able to repeat or better that feat at Spa-Francorchamps.
"For sure that's the target, but whether or not I'll be able to do that ... it'll be very hard to do that. There's a long way to go in the season, so either way it doesn't really matter."
Hamilton finished 13th in second practice on Friday, but with qualifying essentially a formality ahead of his back-of-the-grid start on Sunday, the world champion said the focus had purely been on race pace.
"The approach is not the same, because normally you are dialling in the car with more front end to get around the track as fast as possible, as where now we are trying to get round for as long as possible.
"Today, I didn't do any low fuel runs, I only did race fuel running the whole time and it will be the same tomorrow to try to get the most realistic and representative scenario for Sunday."
Hamilton is likely to be joined on the back row by ex-teammate Fernando Alonso, who is facing a 35-place grid penalty of his own. It was one of the few things he appears to be looking forward to this weekend.
"Oh nice!" he said. "Me and Fernando racing at the back? That could be cool."