Valtteri Bottas has been given a five-place grid penalty for this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka. The penalty has been given for a gearbox change which violates the Formula One regulations.
The FIA requires that the teams run a gearbox for six consecutive races, unless that is a failure that prevented them from finishing the previous race. It’s unknown why the team has opted to replace Bottas’ gearbox. The Finn was not far off of his teammate’s pace in free practice one and had completed roughly the same amount of laps.
Lewis Hamilton, Kevin Magnussen and Carlos Sainz also took replacement gearboxes, although none of them received a grid penalty for doing so. However, Sainz did receive a 20-place grid penalty for going over the number of allotted MGU-H, internal combustion engine and turbo components. The gearbox change was the result of a heavy crash in the first free practice session.
On a side note, Sebastian Vettel has not taken a new gearbox for this weekend, despite his post-race crash with Lance Stroll. Many expected that Vettel would be forced to do so, but it appears that the team believes that the power unit escaped the collision without any damage.
