Kvyat set to get five-place grid penalty for F1 British GP

AlphaTauri Formula 1 driver Daniil Kvyat is set to receive a five-place grid penalty for Sunday’s British Grand Prix after taking on a new gearbox.

The Russian will run a new gearbox on Saturday morning after a problem was discovered on his unit after the Hungarian Grand Prix, where he finished 12th.

Both Kvyat and his teammate Pierre Gasly had the gearboxes changed on their AT01 machines when the Silverstone weekend got underway but only the Frenchman is eligible to make a free switch as he failed to finish in Budapest.

As a result, Kvyat will drop five places from wherever he qualifies for Sunday’s British Grand Prix.

Kvyat is yet to make it into Q3 this season and was only 15th-fastest in FP2 on Friday after his Soft tyre run was ruined by a red flag caused by Red Bull driver Alex Albon’s hefty crash.

Nevertheless, Kvyat was left in a positive move after completing Friday practice.

"It was a very good, productive day," he said. "The only thing that was unfortunate was 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.

"Other than that I think we learned 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 tonight 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 we need to understand what changes to expect, and tomorrow in FP3 it will be important to understand those changes."

On the other side of the AlphaTauri garage, Gasly enjoyed a positive day as he set a time good enough for P8 in the afternoon.

"It was productive, we did a lot of things," he said. "I'm still didn't get the balance exactly how I wanted, but performance-wise we are looking OK 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 up for it tomorrow.”