Charles Pic incurs ten-place grid penalty for engine change

The Marussia of Charles Pic is set to incur a ten-place grid drop ahead of this weekend’s Korean Grand Prix, after the Frenchman’s mechanics decided to change his engine overnight. This is Pic’s ninth engine change of the season, after the rookie used up all of his eight engines throughout the previous races.

With the regulations stipulating that drivers must use only eight engines throughout the entire season, Charles Pic has unfortunately used up all eight of his units. This means that each new engine fitted to his Marussia car will see him incur a ten-place grid penalty, which will most likely see Pic qualify 24th and last.

After the opening two practice sessions of the weekend, Marussia’s race engineer David Greenwood confirmed concerns within the team with regards to Pic’s engine usage, with the team now desperate to make this ninth unit last the remaining five races until season’s end.

“Yes, I would say so [concerned with regards to engines].” Confirmed David Greenwood, “At the minute that is a concern on where we are with the engines.”

Charles Pic was already at a slight disadvantage heading into the Korean Grand Prix weekend, with the Frenchman having no opportunity to test drive the Korea International Circuit on the simulator prior to the weekend. Because many teams didn’t have the relevant laser models for the Korea International Circuit for their simulators, many drivers were at a similar disadvantage prior to the race weekend, with Kimi Raikkonen failing to even walk the track on the Thursday.

“I think, from our perspective, it was a little bit more difficult for Charles to learn Korea versus Japan because of the quality of the track model.” Explained David Greenwood, “That has shown up a little bit this morning. He did say it was harder and definitely in Japan he got more on the pace quicker. It’s not ideal but we’re all in the same situation, so that’s what we use and we get on with it.”

Follow me on Twitter - @AndyYoungF1