Kvyat set for grid drop after gearbox change

Daniil Kvyatis poised to incur a five-place grid penalty for the British Grand Prix as a result of taking a new gearbox on Saturday.

Autosportare reporting that the AlphaTauri driver ran a Friday gearbox in FP1 andFP2at Silverstone, so the change relates to a problem that was discovered after the race in Hungary where he finished in P12.

The Russian’s team-matePierre Gaslysuffered a gearbox failure during the race in Budapest and has also taken a new gearbox for Saturday, but because he failed to finish at the Hungaroring he gets a free change and will not be penalised.

Gasly has made the better start to the season of theAlphaTauriduo, gainingsix points so far to Kvyat’s one, and that continued on Friday at Silverstone. The Frenchman was P8 in FP2, whereas Kvyat was only 15th after his run on soft tyres was spoiled by a red flag caused by Alex Albon’s crash.

Nevertheless, Kvyat said: “It was a very good, productive day. The only unfortunate thing was that the red flag was right on my new tyre run, so we had to abort the lap and go again with the used tyres so it was slightly compromised.

“除此之外,我认为我们学习a good amount of things today. I was quite pleased overall with the balance. For tomorrow we have to tidy up a few things and analyse what we can do better for tomorrow because it’s going to be tight as usual.

“For sure if the conditions are going to change we need to be alert and need to understand what changes to expect, and tomorrow in FP3 it will be important to understand those changes.”

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Ending the day in the top 10@PierreGASLYfinishes P8 in FP2 while@kvyatofficialslots into P15#AlphaTauri#F1#BritishGPpic.twitter.com/ZMLHqqt3UK

— Scuderia AlphaTauri (@AlphaTauriF1)July 31, 2020

Gasly also pointed towards the anticipated cooler weather as being a factor that could potentially shake up Friday’s order.

He said: “It was productive, we did a lot of things. I still didn’t get the balance exactly how I wanted, but performance-wise we are looking okay so far. Tomorrow and Sunday will be very different conditions.

“So far, I think I’ve completed more laps between the two sessions than I did all weekend in Hungary. It feels good to be driving, but we still have quite a bit of work to get the car where it should be and we’ll try to make it up for tomorrow.”

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