Ericsson hit with grid penalty after crash in FP2

Marcus Ericsson will suffer a 10-place grid penalty for an engine change following his huge crash in second practice at the Italian Grand Prix. The Swede crashed heavilyat the end of the main straight, rolling his Sauber after a DRS failure pitched him into the barrier.

The team unsurprisingly broke the curfew last night in order to fix the destroyed Sauber but Ericsson will be starting towards the back regardless of any qualifying heroics following the power unit change.

The FIA confirmed that he had switched to a fourth internal combustion engine following the crash which puts him over the allowed number of components for the season.

A potentially worrying sight for the FIA is that Nico Hulkenberg suffered a seperate DRS issue in FP3 which put him out of the session. Charlie Whiting however downplayed any concerns that they might have regarding the drag reduction system.

"We’ve been through it with Sauber and we know what happened. It was a small design flaw, which they corrected," Whiting said after the crash for Ericsson.

"But generally speaking we don’t have any concerns with DRS on high-speed circuits."