Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMcLaren

New gearbox gives Alonso further penalty

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Fernando Alonso has joined team-mate Jenson Button in receiving a grid penalty of 25 places for the Austrian Grand Prix.

The Spaniard already had a 20-place penalty looming for a number of power unit component changes, with an in-race penalty also certain as one car can only drop a maximum of 19 places on the current grid.

After stopping out on track with a gearbox problem during FP3, McLaren has had to change the gearbox which had not yet completed six consecutive events, leading to a further five-place grid penalty for Alonso.

The sliding scale of in-race punishments based on the number of unused grid positions means Alonso will receive at least a 10-second time penalty in Sunday's race. Should he have 11 grid positions left unused, Alonso will receive a drive-through penalty.

Button's own 25-place grid penalty was confirmed by a number of power unit component changes on Saturday morning.

Click here for the gallery of the Formula Una girls at the Austrian Grand Prix

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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.