Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsLotus F1

Grosjean handed gearbox grid penalty

Romain Grosjean will start from the back row of the grid for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix after a gearbox change.

The Frenchman - who is taking part in his final race for Lotus before moving to the new Haas F1 Team next season - was hit with problems during qualifying and stopped on track towards the end of Q2, leaving him 15th on the grid originally.

However, the problems which plagued Grosjean have led to a gearbox change which carries an automatic five-place grid penalty, demoting him to the back row of the grid.

Despite the penalty, Grosjean will not start last as Manor's Will Stevens took a fifth control electronics ahead of final practice on Saturday which also gave him a grid penalty. As a result Stevens - who qualified 19th - will start from last with Grosjean one place ahead.

Drivers to profit from Grosjean's penalty are Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso and Marcus Ericsson who all move up a place, while Roberto Merhi will start from the pit lane after making set-up changes since qualifying.

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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.