Alonso moves up a grid position; penalty to Maldonado in Brazil

Thanks to Williams’ Pastor Maldonado receiving a post-qualifying penalty, Fernando Alonso moves up on the grid from eighth to seventh!

Perhaps Alonso has a lucky charm tucked away in his pocket. Last weekend at the United States Grand Prix, Alonso gained a slot on the grid. Actually he started the race in Austin, Texas two positions higher on the grid than he qualified with thanks to his teammate Felipe Massa who had a gearbox change on his Ferrari.

Today Alonso moved up one notch which puts him three grid positions behind his rival for the 2012 FIA Formula One championship.

Pastor Maldonado, Williams F1 Team

Photo by: xpb.cc

Maldonado was given a 10-place grid penalty due to receiving his third warning of the season. Today it was for “missing the weighbridge” in qualifying two. One of his two previous reprimands was during qualifying at the Chinese GP due to blocking Heikki Kovalainen. The second warning was when he collided with Sergio Perez at the British GP race in Silverstone.

Besides Alonso, the other Formula One drivers who will benefit are Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg, Kimi Raikkonen for the Lotus-Renault team, Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg, and Paul di Resta also in one of the Force India-Mercedes cars.

Maldonado’s own Williams-Renault teammate gained a spot. Brazil’s own Bruno Senna moves from 12th to 11th on the grid for Sunday’s standing start – weather depending with early reports expecting rain overnight and/or during the entire day in Sao Paulo.

Sergio Perez moves up a position in his Sauber-Ferrari. Before his final Formula One race, seven times world champion Michael Schumacher now will start his Mercedes in the lucky number 13 grid spot unless teams incur penalties.

Sauber’s driver Kamui Kobayashi moved up to 14th followed by Toro-Rosso’s Daniel Ricciardo. Maldonado’s new starting position is 16th!