Vergne issued three-place grid penalty for blocking Senna

Jean-Eric Vergne has been issued with a three-place grid penalty for blocking Bruno Senna towards the end of Q1, which in turn saw the Brazilian driver drop out as the opening part of qualifying came to a conclusion. This penalty will instead only see Vergne drop two places, however, due to Schumacher’s ten place grid penalty from Singapore.

The Frenchman endured a highly uncompetitive qualifying performance, after setup issues on his STR7. Vergne decided to slow down whilst on his flying lap during Q1, as the Frenchman began to catch the Marussia of Timo Glock. This then created a concertina-affect, as Bruno Senna therefore closed up on the Toro Rosso driver and has his lap impeded. The Williams driver was visibly furious behind the wheel, flailing his arm at the Frenchman in utter disgust.

“I’m not so happy with today’s qualifying as we have struggled to find the right balance on our car all weekend.” Explained Jean-Eric Vergne, “For qualifying, maybe we went too far the other way in terms of set-up and when the balance is not right, you lose a lot of time in the high speed corners. As for the incident with Senna, I was catching Glock on my flying lap and I had to slow because of that. I saw Bruno was coming very quickly and unfortunately he caught me at the chicane where there is not much room. But I knew I had to let him past and moved as much to the outside as I could, even though I knew I would not be in the best position to come out of the corner. After that, he slowed a lot and I had to pass him again on the straight, otherwise I would not have set a proper time.”

Due to Michael Schumacher’s ten-place grid penalty after his collision with Vergne at the Singapore Grand Prix last time out, the Frenchman will instead only drop two places from 17th to 19th on the grid. Vergne will understandably be hoping for a much more competitive 53-lap race, as he strives to redeem himself after the shenanigans with Bruno Senna.

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