Sebastian Vettel's impossible task of overhauling Lewis Hamilton in the championship will be even harder on Sunday after the Ferrari driver was handed a three-place grid penalty for speeding during a red flag period in FP1.
The stewards summoned Vettel between FP1 and FP2 and deemed the German to have slowed insufficiently for gravel on the circuit.
In a statement issued by the race stewards, they clarified that Vettel had indeed been driving too quickly under the red flag conditions and applied a three-place penalty for the race as they had done previously for similar incidents.
“Vettel did, in fact, fail to stay above the minimum time set by the FIA ECU in marshalling sectors 6 and 7.
“As the regulation states, Art. 31.6 was added this year to ensure that drivers reduce speed significantly during a red flag. Breach of this regulation is seen to be an extremely serious matter. To be consistent with previous decisions on similar incidents this year, the Stewards assessed the penalty specified above.”