Grid Penalties for Fernando & Ricciardo

Fernando Alonso of McLaren and Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull have been slapped with massive grid penalties for the Austrian F1 Grand Prix on 21st June, 2015.

Fernando Alonso has gone beyond the permitted 4 engines and is now using the 5th engine. That automatically gets 10 place starting grid penalty. However, Alonso apart from using his 5th Honda engine is now on the 5th turbocharger and 5th MGU-H. The later two attracts 5 place grid penalty each totaling upto 20 grid point penalties for Fernando Alonso. Since his McLaren is too slow and is most likely to qualify barely before the two Manor Marussia racing cars and if luck permits then before his teammate Jenson Button and any other unfortunate racer to have a qualifying problem, he cannot consume all his grid penalties. So he is likely to be slapped with time penalties in the race by giving 10 second stop go penalty. Given that McLaren with its Honda engine is in such bad shape, does it actually matter where Alonso starts?

However, Daniel Ricciardo will obviously be in a worse position with that 10 place grid penalty as he is mostly a top ten qualifier with his Red Bull car and Renault engine and is currently in the 7th position in the drivers championship with 35 points. This hits Red Bull hard as they now can look at Daniil Kvyat to challenge the front runners. Daniil Kvyat is 8th in the drivers championship with 19 points.

Vettel scores Pole and Redbull 1-2 in Suzuka

Sebastian Vettel Scores Pole in Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix 

Red Bull scores 1-2 in qualifying with Sebastian Vettel scoring the Pole in 2012 Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix qualifying.

Schumacher who has announced his retirement, made everybody gasp for breath when he was on the verge of being the only driver who couldn’t qualify under the 107% rule. He was in hard tires and had perhaps planned two back to back laps. His first lap was compromised as he ran wide and despite slow cars ahead of him, he could squeeze through and score P16 and qualify to Q2.

The following drivers failed to qualify for Q2

Bruno Senna of Williams at 1:33.405,

Heikki Kovalainen of Caterham at 1:34.657

Timo Glock of Marussia at 1:35.213

Pedro de la Rosa of HRT 1:35.385

Charles Pic of Marussia 1:35.429

Vitaly Petrov of Caterham 1:35.432

Narain Karthikeyan of HRT 1:36.734

It was a great result for Pedro de la Rosa of HRT who outqualified Charles Pic of Marussia and Vitaly Petrov of Caterham.

Mercedes was not fast enough. Michael Schumacher waited till the last moment to hit the track. However, at 1:32.469 he could score the 13^th position, faster than his much younger team mate Nico Rosberg who scored P15 with a time of 1:32.625. Michael Schumacher however has a penalty of 10 grid slots for the accident in Singapore.

Felipe Massa who was threatening to out pace his much fancied rival Fernando Alonso, could only score the P11 position at 1:32.293. Paul di Resta at 1:32.327 is at P12. Pastor Maldonado of Williams again outscored his team mate Bruno Senna. Maldonado set a time of 1:32.512. Daniel Ricciardo scored 1:32.954 for a P16 position ahead of his team mate Jean-Eric Vergne who set a time of 1:33.368

At the top of the table, it was an intensely fought session, with the RedBulls locking up the front row. Sebastian Vettel at 1:30.839 scored the Pole while his team mate Mark Webber at 1:31.090 came in second. Jenson Button of McLaren scored 1:31.290 outscored his team mate Lewis Hamilton who is going to Mercedes at the end of the season. However, Jenson Button will drop down 5 positions due to a gearbox change. The local hero Kamui Kobayashi at 1:31.700 scored the P4 position for Sauber and will be elevated to P3 due to Jenson Button’s penalty.

Romain Grosjean at 1:31.898 scored P5, Sergio Perez at 1:32.022 scored P6. Fernando Alonso at 1:32.114 was P7, Kimi Raikkonen at 1:32.208 was P8, Hamilton at 1:32.327 was P9. Nico Hulkenberg didn’t choose to set a time and was P10.

Many questions to answer. Will Michael Schumacher overcome his 10 place grid penalty and score good points as Suzuka is a drivers circuit?