Kimi Raikkonen receives 5-place grid drop

With former Malaysian Grand Prix winner, Kimi Raikkonen, confident of a podium this weekend, the ‘Iceman’ has received a 5-place grid drop for Sunday’s race after his mechanics were forced to change his gearbox. This now means both Finn’s on the grid will being starting 5-places below their original qualifying position on Sunday.

The problem apparently arose during the Australian Grand Prix when Raikkonen had an excursion off track, which filled his radiator with crass cuttings. This in turn forced the gearbox to overheat, which has subsequently forced the Lotus mechanics to change the gearbox.

Kimi Raikkonen’s Friday running was also hampered due to a KERs issue, which he seemed confident could be fixed and seemed to be looking forward to the race.

“I hope we will make some progress tomorrow as the car is quicker than we’ve shown.” Explained the Finn, “Having an issue with the KERS in the afternoon was frustrating but I’m sure we’ll have it fixed for tomorrow. The track is exactly as I remember it and I hope for a better qualifying than we had in Australia. I’m looking forward to racing here.”

This unfortunate penalty comes after Raikkonen failed to make it out of Q1 last weekend in Australia, which made his race day all the more difficult as he fought his way up to 7th place. Unless Raikkonen repeats Grosjean’s success tomorrow during qualifying, it looks like he’ll be starting the race from the midfield once again.

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