Grid penalties for new car components to be a thing of past after Monza’s near farce


Nine F1 drivers took penalties accruing 150 places at the Italian Grand Prix while Ferrari prepare for a dogfight against Mercedes – McLaren merely seek a solution

Long bemoaned by fans, the application of grid penalties for replacing power unit components and gearboxes reached almost farcical levels at Monza. Nine drivers took penalties accruing 150 places and changing the qualifying results to such an extent that Lewis Hamilton on pole and Romain Grosjean, who crashed in the first session, were the only drivers to have retained their original positions. Such was the scale of the movement, Kevin Magnussen, who was knocked out in Q1, found himself in the top 10.

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