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Formula 1 Belgian GP

Ericsson to take grid penalty after gearbox change

Marcus Ericsson will take a five-place Formula 1 grid penalty for Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix after Sauber changed his car's gearbox.

Lawrence Barretto

Edited: Aug 24, 2017, 3:55 PM

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Marcus Ericsson, Sauber C36

Marcus Ericsson, Sauber

Marcus Ericsson, Sauber walks the track

Marcus Ericsson, Sauber

Motorsport.com has learned Sauber found damage to the internals after the Hungarian GP, forcing the team into the change as a precaution.

The rules dictate gearboxes must last six consecutive events, with the driver incurring a five-place grid drop for an earlier change.

The only exceptions to these rules are for non-starters and non-finishers (for technical reasons) of the previous race, neither of which apply to Ericsson.

It comes on a weekend where Sauber has introduced a new floor for both Ericsson and teammate Pascal Wehrlein.

This completes the update package, which was first introduced last time out in Hungary and included new bodywork and a new cooling system.

Nevertheless, Ericsson is expecting a challenging weekend at Spa, particularly because of the deficit incurred by running a year-old engine.

"We have the new floor to like complete the package we had in Budapest so that should be good," he said. "Here and Monza will be difficult because they very power sensitive tracks and that's going to be difficult for us.

"But then I think there will be some tracks like Singapore where we should have better chances if can get these updates working.

"We need to maximise what we have and even if we are struggling we need to make sure we make the most of it and then if things would happen we can be there and take the opportunities.

"It's getting a bit difficult to keep up with the other guys with the old power unit. In the race as well we are clipping quite a lot more than our competitors on the straights."

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