Sebastien Vettel will face a five grid-slot penalty at this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix thanks to a new gearbox being fitted as a result of the team’s new car.

Vettel has not had the most auspicious of starts to the 2008 season, with three of his four race starts being DNFs. His first finish of the season at Turkey has come just before the Toro Rosso team introduced their new car, the STR3, which uses a totally different gearbox from the old STR2B.

Vettel’s gearbox had completed just two events. As the team had already decided to switch both drivers into the new cars from the Monaco Grand Prix, it means Vettel has no choice but to race with a new gearbox, therefore he has to take the gearbox-change penalty.

Team-mate Sebastien Bourdais will not suffer the same fate – Bourdais did not finish the Turkish Grand Prix and will therefore escape the penalty.

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