Malaysia GP: Raikkonen Gets Five-Place Grid Penalty, McLaren Locks Up Front Row

Qualifying is in the books and McLaren is heading into the second GP of the year with guns blazing, locking up the top two grid spots thanks to spot on driving from Hamilton and Button, Raikkonen’s Lotus F1 car’s gearbox had other plans for him.

Report from Formula1.com news: Lotus’s Kimi Raikkonen is set to drop five places on the grid for Sunday’s race in Malaysia thanks to an unscheduled gearbox change following Friday’s opening practice sessions.

“A bit more work for Kimi’s crew this evening,” said the team on their official Twitter feed. “An issue with Kimi’s gearbox so we’re changing it now.” Gearboxes are required to last five Grands Prix under the 2012 regulations.

Raikkonen was 15th fastest in second practice at Sepang this afternoon – six places behind team mate Romain Grosjean – after problems with the KERS system on his car.

The Finn also experienced a difficult qualifying at Melbourne’s season opener last weekend, when he failed to progress beyond Q1 thanks to mistiming his final run.

In other qualifying news McLaren locks up the 1-2 spot on the grid for Sunday’s race with an almost perfect first-run lap by Lewis Hamilton and a great second-run lap from Jenson Button securing the front row.

Hamilton lapped in 1m 36.219s despite a late lock-up mistake in the final corner, to take his second successive pole position of the season, while Button pushed through to second with 1m 36.368s to edge out Michael Schumacher, who screwed 1m 36.391 out of his Mercedes on his first run. Neither he nor team mate Nico Rosberg made a second run, however, suggesting that the team need to conserve tyres as the W03 is known to be hard on its rubber in races.

Source F1