Lewis Hamilton and Esteban Ocon are set to start the Azerbaijan Grand Prix from the pit lane. 

Both drivers made changes to their power unit components on their cars, outside the parc fermé regulations, leading to a penalty, which requires the Mercedes and Alpine driver to begin the race from the pitlane.

After Lewis Hamilton had an engine failure during the Australian Grand Prix earlier this year, Mercedes knew that they would have to face this kind of penalty at least once this year.

Due to Hamilton’s disappointing P7 finish in qualifying yesterday, despite a strong-looking pace in all three practices before, Mercedes has decided to change his power unit in Baku. Even though Baku is a street circuit, it is not that hard to overtake here compared to other street circuits on the calendar, therefore, Mercedes will face the penalty in Baku rather than possibly make the seven-time world champion start last after a good quali later this season.

Esteban Ocon has had a difficult weekend so far, starting with an MGU-H issue during the first practice session, which limited him to only three installation laps and required a power unit change from the pool. 

In the third free practice yesterday, Ocon's car then came to a stop on track due to a high-pressure fuel pump system failure, causing him to miss the rest of the session and necessitating a replacement of the affected components.

Lastly, the French driver had a disastrous qualifying session yesterday. During his flying lap in Q1, he clipped a wall, which led to a puncture and ended his changes on a good result.

Both drivers have taken on a new internal combustion engine, turbocharger, MGU-H, and MGU-K.

This helps Lando Norris, who had a bad quali yesterday and will now start two places higher in P15. Guanyu Zhou, who is also facing a penalty for power unit changes, with a difference, that those have been done 'in time', will start P17. Pierre Gasly, who got disqualified from qualifying due to exceedance of the instantaneous fuel mass flow, is set to start P18.