F1: Button to get gearbox penalty for USGP

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Jenson Button will be hit with a five-place grid penalty for the United States Grand Prix due to a gearbox change on his McLaren Formula 1 car.

Current F1 rules state that a gearbox has to last for six consecutive events, but Button's previous gearbox only lasted two races after McLaren fitted a new unit following his retirement from September's Singapore GP. The 2009 world champion, who described the current gearbox rule as "silly", hopes hot conditions in Sunday's Circuit of The Americas race will mix up the field and allow him to recover the lost ground.

"I've got a gearbox change, which is a bit of a pain," Button confirmed. "Hopefully it's going to be hot, though, and mix it [the race] up a little bit.

"We're good now at controlling our tire temperatures and [the race] should be mixed up in terms of pit stops, which is what we need starting five places back, because even if I qualified fourth or fifth, it's still 10th on the grid and you're on old tires when the guys behind are on new tires."

Button would appear to be out of luck on the weather front, though – the current forecast calls for partly cloudy conditions with high temperatures in mid-70s on Friday and race day Sunday, but considerably cooler for qualifying on Saturday at 64 degrees.