No grid penalty for Sebastian Vettel at Japanese Grand Prix after Ferrari confirmation for same gearbox usage
Ferrari ran into two unfortunate events at Malaysian Grand Prix last week.
Kimi Raikkonen could not start the race from next to pole position, which could have be a win for Ferrari, if engine could have performed like Vettel’s. While Sebastian Vettel after finishing fourth at end of the race crashed into Williams Lance Stroll. Gearbox was feared to be damaged irretrievably in one of most bizarre endings to an F1 race.
‘The Prancing Horse’ was optimistic about Vettel’s gearbox, that the team will be able to use the same gearbox in next race. The optimism was reported after Ferrari’s gearbox flew from Malaysia to their Itailian Maranello base for inspection.
The Ferrari team confirmed on Wednesday from their official twitter account Scuderia Ferrari, “The gearbox #Seb5 used in #MalaysiaGP is still available #JapaneseGP”
The Ferrari would have faced five-place grid penalty for Vettel at Suzuka, if the gearbox had been damaged to an extent where the change had been inevitable according to F1 regulation.
F1’s regulations state, “Each driver may use no more than one gearbox for six consecutive events. Every unscheduled gearbox change will require the driver to drop five places on the grid at that meeting.”
F1 regulations allow a change of gearbox without any penalty ‘if a driver fails to finish a race due to reasons beyond his or his team’s control’.
Ferrari had changed the Vettel’s car gearbox before the start of Malaysian Grand Prix.
“That could be another bad surprise this weekend,” said Vettel before leaving Sepang. “I hope not because it was completely unnecessary.”
The Malaysia GP stewards found that both drivers cannot be blamed fully for the crash.
The caution was shown by the title leader Hamilton when he was pushed for a conflict of lead is in contrast to the aggression shown by Vettel at race.
Hamilton said: “Reliability is coming into play but also driving mistakes are coming into play as well. We have seen a couple from Sebastian. Today, for example, crashing into someone.
“Who knows whether that is his gearbox busted for the next race or not. We will see. All those things come into play. I am just trying to be smart with the decisions I make on track.”
