Second five-place gearbox penalty of 2016 awaits Vettel in Austria; Ferrari spend another engine token improving power unit
Monday 4 July 2016 13:07, UK
Sebastian Vettel's chances of staying in touch with Mercedes in the Drivers' Championship at the Austrian GP are set to be compromised by a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change.
The four-time champion is poised to suffer his second gearbox penalty of the season on Saturday when Ferrari install a new race unit in his SF16-H after problems with the one used in Baku.
Ferrari are yet to win a race in 2016 and Vettel is 45 points behind Nico Rosberg in the championship.
At the Russian GP in May, Vettel lost would what have been the team's only front-row start of the season when a reliability fault necessitated an out-of-sequence gearbox change. He started seventh and was then taken out by Daniil Kvyat on the opening lap.
The gearbox Vettel raced in Azerbaijan had only been used for four consecutive events, two fewer than the regulations dictate.
Despite world champions Mercedes winning seven of the season's opening eight races, Ferrari's management have insisted they are not giving up on title glory in 2016 and ahead of this weekend's Austrian round have spent another engine token improving their power unit.
Both Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen are using new engines and MGU-K units at the Red Bull Ring. Ferrari now have just three engine tokens left to spend over the remainder of the season, eight fewer than Mercedes alone.
Remaining engine tokens
Renault - 21 tokens (11 spent)
Honda - 12 tokens (20 spent)
Mercedes - 11 tokens (21 spent)
Ferrari - 3 tokens (29 spent)
