Giovinazzi handed five-place grid penalty for Styrian Grand Prix

Antonio Giovinazzi has been handed a five-place grid penalty for this afternoon's Styrian Grand Prix, after he was forced to change the gearbox on his Alfa Romeo C39.

The Italian driver had a shunt with the barriers at the end of the first part of qualifying on Saturday – an incident that saw the session red flagged after he stopped his car by the side of the track.

And on Sunday morning the stewards confirmed he had been given a five-place grid drop for changing the gearbox on his car. He originally qualified 19th, just ahead of Romain Grosjean, so would have expected to be relegated to the very back of the grid, though the stewards also confirmed on Sunday that Grosjean will start from the pit lane, after Haas broke the rules by working on the car in parc ferme conditions.

After qualifying, Giovinazzi explained what happened when he had his Q1 crash.

“It’s been a difficult session, even though at the beginning of the session we were really strong. We needed something special on the final lap, I tried to push as much as I could to get the position but unfortunately I went onto the kerb at the second last corner, lost the rear a little bit and that was it," he said.

"It’s a shame as I was improving my time by nearly a second and I think I would have made it to Q2. Tomorrow may be dry so we have completely different conditions to deal with.

"We start from the back, like last week, but just as we did last Sunday we will need to make the race work for us. We know we have the pace to recover so we won’t give up.”

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