Latest News / Headline

Grid drops for Sainz, Grosjean, Hulkenberg

30 Jul 2016

Carlos Sainz, Romain Grosjean and Nico Hulkenberg have all been issued grid penalties for Sunday's Formula 1 Grosser Preis von Deutschland at Hockenheim.

Sainz has been issued a three-place penalty after being deemed to have unfairly impeded Williams' Felipe Massa in Turn 2 during the second phase of qualifying on Saturday afternoon.

The Spaniard, who had qualified 13th for Toro Rosso, was also handed two penalty points on his Superlicence - taking him to four points in total, of the permitted 12 within a calendar year.

Grosjean's penalty meanwhile relates to a gearbox change that Haas were forced to make between FP3 and the start of qualifying.

The Frenchman, who had booked 15th, will drop five places.

Hulkenberg meanwhile has been docked one place for a technical breach regarding the tyres they used in qualifying.

Current regulations state that teams must hand back two sets of tyres before qualifying, which cannot then be used during the pole fight - but Force India mistakenly tagged one set of tyres to be handed back, and them used them during Q1. Hulkenberg qualified seventh, less than three hundredths of a second ahead of Williams' Valtteri Bottas and Force India team mate Sergio Perez.

With the various grid penalties counted for, the grid is set to line up thus: Rosberg, Hamilton; Ricciardo, Verstappen; Raikkonen, Vettel; Bottas, Hulkenberg; Perez, Massa; Gutierrez, Button; Alonso, Palmer; Sainz, Magnussen; Wehrlein, Kvyat; Haryanto, Grosjean; Nasr, Ericsson.