Sebastian Vettel hit with five place gearbox penalty in Russia - Gearbox and engine changes cost Ferrari
Published by Christine
Sebastian Vettel has had a difficult start to his Russian race weekend, enduring a curtailed practice session after his Ferrari stopped out on track, and now picking up a five place grid penalty before qualifying has even begun. Ferrari decided to change the gearbox on Vettel’s car after finding damage that is reportedly left over from the German’s first lap collision with his teammate in China.
Vettel missed out on an hour of running in the afternoon practice session, but he wasn’t too worried, saying: “Kimi did the homework for the team so it’s not too bad. Also, in Sochi, we know roughly what to expect so we can still learn a lot from what other people did.”
Ferrari have also changed the power units in both their cars this weekend, meaning Vettel is running his third of the five allotted engines, whilst Räikkönen moves on to his second. The team have used up a couple of their development tokens too, hoping to close the gap to Mercedes ahead.
