Bottas hit by 5 place gearbox penalty for British GP

Valtteri Bottas has been handed a five place Grid Penalty for making an unscheduled Gearbox change for this weekend’s British Grand Prix.

The rules stipulate that a gearbox must be in use for six consecutive events but Bottas’ car needs a new gearbox and the old one had not done the required number of races.

This is the second time in a week that Mercedes have been victim to a gearbox penalty, with Lewis Hamilton’s car also falling to the same penalty last time out in Austria. This failure inevitably will raise questions about the reliability of the Mercedes car with two identical penalties in consecutive events, and the ability to compete for the championship when hampered by these problems.

The penalty comes at the worst possible time for Bottas in terms of momentum, as he has closed the gap on his championship rivals in the last two races, putting himself firmly in the championship fight. Plus on the basis of the results in practice Bottas looked set to have another highly competitive weekend at Silverstone, showing that the momentum was clearly behind him. This penalty will almost certainly stunt his momentum, and give an edge to his championship rivals this weekend.

Sam Gale