Felipe Massa and Esteban Gutierrez have both been given three-place grid penalties for the Spanish Grand Prix after blocking other drivers during qualifying earlier today.
Massa was judged by the stewards to have blocked Mark Webber during Q2, and has been demoted from sixth to ninth.
This means that Romain Grosjean will now share the third row of the grid with Fernando Alonso, with Mark Webber and Sergio Perez also moving forward a place to seventh and eighth respectively.
Speaking after qualifying, Massa did not expect to get a penalty: “It was not my intention to get in [Webber’s] way and in all honesty, I can’t recall having affected his qualifying,” said the Brazilian.
“When I saw him in the mirrors, I thought I’d get through the corner before letting him by, which was the only course of action at such a narrow point. On top of that, he was on worn tyres at the time and I don’t think he was doing a quick lap.
Gutierrez, who appeared to severely hamper Kimi Raikkonen‘s final flying lap in Q1, will now start from nineteenth.
