Sebastian Vettel Handed Five-Place Grid Penalty For Gearbox Change

 

Sebastian Vettel has been handed a five-place grid penalty after Ferrari were forced to change his gearbox ahead of the Russian GP. The news is a further blow to the German driver who ground to a halt during Practice Two in Sochi with an electrical problem on his SF16-H.

A Ferrari spokesman said the gearbox was not damaged on Friday, but in Vettel's first-corner collision with team-mate Kimi Raikkonen at the last race in China.  Having known about the issue before their arrival in Sochi, the team assessed during the running Vettel did complete on Friday whether or not they could successfully run the gearbox throughout the whole weekend. They ultimately decided not to risk it, so the out-of-sequence change results in the mandatory five-place penalty.

Vettel, who trails Nico Rosberg by 42 points in the Drivers' Championship, will start no higher than sixth on Sunday's grid. The problem which ended his day early in P2 was an unrelated electrical short-circuit, which shut the car down.

Speaking before his grid penalty was confirmed, Vettel admitted he was already on the back foot. He said “The balance was not quite where I wanted it to be. It was quite slippery. We're lacking a bit of information from my side but other people did their homework and hopefully we can copy that a bit”.