Bottas hit by 5 place gearbox penalty for British GP

  • Published on 14 Jul 2017 19:20
  • comments 5
  • By: Sam Gale

Valtteri Bottas has been handed a five place Grid Penalty for making an unscheduled Gearbox change for this weekend’s British Grand Prix.

The rules stipulate that a gearbox must be in use for six consecutive events but Bottas’ car needs a new gearbox and the old one had not done the required number of races.

This is the second time in a week that Mercedes have been victim to a gearbox penalty, with Lewis Hamilton’s car also falling to the same penalty last time out in Austria. This failure inevitably will raise questions about the reliability of the Mercedes car with two identical penalties in consecutive events, and the ability to compete for the championship when hampered by these problems.

The penalty comes at the worst possible time for Bottas in terms of momentum, as he has closed the gap on his championship rivals in the last two races, putting himself firmly in the championship fight. Plus on the basis of the results in practice Bottas looked set to have another highly competitive weekend at Silverstone, showing that the momentum was clearly behind him. This penalty will almost certainly stunt his momentum, and give an edge to his championship rivals this weekend.

 

Sam Gale

RogerF1

Posts: 501

Whilst there may be merit in enforced grid penalties to cap costs and prevent money teams from having a 100% new car every race, it just falsifies results and will ultimately skew the championship. Maybe even it costs the teams more money to develop reliable drive trains than to build one which l... [Read more]

  • 1
  • Jul 14 2017 - 23:51

Replies (5)

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  • Oh no, and he has been on top on both FPs so far. How disappointing.

    • + 0
    • Jul 14 2017 - 21:09
  • I'm rooting for him to beat Lewis this weekend even with the penalty, not showing up to F1 live for a holiday is simply shocking form

    • + 0
    • Jul 14 2017 - 22:20
  • RogerF1

    Posts: 501

    Whilst there may be merit in enforced grid penalties to cap costs and prevent money teams from having a 100% new car every race, it just falsifies results and will ultimately skew the championship. Maybe even it costs the teams more money to develop reliable drive trains than to build one which lasts one race? Maybe one day we will find a way back to just turning up and having a straight battle.

    • + 1
    • Jul 14 2017 - 23:51
  • boudy

    Posts: 1,168

    Lets hope he doesn't take anyone out this time.

    • + 0
    • Jul 15 2017 - 00:57
  • kngrthr

    Posts: 203

    lets see the aacouting figures and see if these rules do acually save money.

    my bet is they don't.

    or they save so little that the effect they have on the races is not warranted

    • + 0
    • Jul 15 2017 - 03:40

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