Ericsson gets grid penalty after engine change

Marcus Ericsson will drop 10 places on the grid for Sunday's Italian Grand Prix after Sauber changed the engine on his Formula 1 power unit ahead of final practice at Monza.

Ericsson suffered a high-speed crash during second practice on Friday afternoon after his DRS failed to close at the end of the main straight, forcing Sauber to break curfew in order to build the Swede's car up around a new chassis ahead of Saturday's running.

In the latest FIA technical bulletin issued following the start of FP3 at Monza, it was confirmed that Ericsson had moved onto his fourth internal combustion engine (ICE) of the season, exceeding his season allocation for the first time.

As a result, Ericsson will drop 10 places on the grid for Sunday's race, but is still due to start ahead of both Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg who took complete new power units for the weekend, resigning them to the rear of the field.

Ericsson was not the only driver to experience a problem with DRS through practice as Renault's Nico Hulkenberg also suffered an issue in FP3 on Saturday.

Speaking before the final session, FIA race director Charlie Whiting said Ericsson's problem had been caused by a design flaw and that he did not think there were any problems with the use of DRS on high-speed tracks such as Monza.

"We’ve been through it with Sauber and we know what happened. It was a small design flaw, which they corrected," Whiting said.

"But generally speaking we don’t have any concerns with DRS on high-speed circuits."