Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsLotus F1

Grosjean hit by grid penalty

Romain Grosjean will start the Monaco Grand Prix from 16th place due to a gearbox penalty.

The Frenchman needed to change his gearbox following a problem at the Spanish Grand Prix which saw him lose fourth gear for much of the race. However, the current regulations state a gearbox must be used for six consecutive races before it can be changed.

With Monaco the sixth and final race of the sequence, Grosjean has been handed a five place grid penalty which will see him drop from 11th on the grid to 16th on Sunday. Grosjean had been just 0.008s away from a place in Q3 during qualifying.

As a result of Grosjean's penalty, Jenson Button moves up to 11th place in the McLaren ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, Felipe Massa, Fernando Alonso and Felipe Nasr.

Click here for a look at the technical updates brought by all the teams at the start of the European season

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.