Lewis Hamilton's final season at Mercedes marred by engine woes

Mercedes revealed on Friday that Lewis Hamilton is likely to be in for a tough season as the seven-times world champion has already lost one of his four allotted engines, meaning he could face grid penalties later in the season.

Hamilton is in his final season with the Silver Arrows before he joins Ferrari next year. He retired from the Australian Grand Prix after a sudden power unit failure.

"That one is for the bin," Mercedes' boss Toto Wolff said during the opening sessions for the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka circuit.

"It is a very highly unusual failure that we have a hardware failure that we didn't see coming before. So yeah, we can't reuse that. And it depends how the season develops, whether we need one more or not. I can't really say at this stage."

Meanwhile, Wolff made a U-turn on his decision not to attend the Japanese GP.

The Mercedes team boss was scheduled not to be at Suzuka this weekend. The Press Association reported it was planned before the start of the new season and not as a result of the team's poor performance at the Australian GP.

Intermittent rain gave the drivers plenty to ponder in FP2

Watch all the key action from a stop-start second practice