Vettel: “I don't expect penalties for gearbox problems”

Sebastian Vettel does not expect to incur a penalty for changing the gearbox at the Austrian GP. The German from Ferrari achieved the best time in Free Practice 2 at the Red Bull Ring, preceding Nico Rosberg by a tenth during the qualifying simulations while Lewis Hamilton was unable to set a clean lap on the supersoft tyres.

Ferrari seems to be in excellent shape as demonstrated by Raikkonen's third fastest time, three tenths behind his teammate. But both in the morning and towards the end of the second session Vettel suffered gearbox problems. Asked if he expects the transmission to be replaced, resulting in a 5-place grid penalty, Vettel said he was calm and replied: "We had a problem with the gearbox, one of the sensors went into alarm and we slowed down." . We took a thorough look, we still don't know what the problem was but it doesn't seem related to the one this morning."

Vettel missed most of the morning and admitted that missing free practice 1 affected the program: “It's a circuit where it's very important to have pace, the lap is short so you have to find the rhythm and do more laps. Unfortunately we couldn't lap as we wanted but that's how it went, we'll see what happens tomorrow and especially Sunday. Mercedes? It is hard to say. I'm usually always able to take a step forward during the night. Hopefully we can stay with them and put pressure on them tomorrow."