12/10/2012
NEWS STORY
Charles Pic takes a ten-place grid penalty for Sunday's Grand Prix while Michael Schumacher is officially reprimanded.
Pic's penalty is the result of his team's decision to change the engine in his Marussia, the ninth powerplant that the Frenchman has used this season.
"We plan to fit a new engine to Charles' car this evening in the knowledge that, as his ninth engine of the season, we will incur a 10-place grid penalty on Sunday," said the Russian outfit after this afternoon's session.
"This morning I felt that my first experience of this track was quite positive," said Pic. "We did some good work with the new floor to compare the data with Suzuka while I started to learn the circuit and get up to speed. This afternoon I was less comfortable with the steering. As we were unlikely to improve unless we changed something, and in fact the car was very difficult to drive, we decided to switch the steering rack, although this would mean losing some track time. The change was positive but the car was still not as we would like, so we have to work to understand why."
Meanwhile, Schumacher, who took a ten-place penalty to Suzuka following the misdemeanour in Singapore which saw him crash into Jean-Eric Vergne, was hauled before the stewards who adjudged that the seven-time champion impeded both HRTs in this afternoon's session.
The German, who was fifth fastest today and officially announced his retirement last weekend, was officially reprimanded by the stewards, who include former F1 driver Martin Donnelly, it is his second reprimand of the season.
Check out our Friday gallery, here.