By Chris Medland - Oct 23, 2022, 12:44 PM ET

Ocon and Tsunoda take penalties ahead of USGP

Esteban Ocon will start the United States Grand Prix from the pit lane while there is also a penalty for Yuki Tsunoda.

The Frenchman made a surprise exit in Q1 on Saturday and Alpine has taken the opportunity to change the power unit in Ocon’s car as he was already set to start from 17th place. The power unit change has been done without the approval of the FIA technical delegate, automatically triggering a pit lane start.

Ocon’s penalty comes at the same time that Tsunoda has taken new gearbox components that exceed the limits for the season.

The AlphaTauri driver was originally slated to start from 13th place, but the infraction will see him receive a five-place grid penalty, dropping him to 18th and promoting Fernando Alonso, Kevin Magnussen, Daniel Ricciardo, Mick Schumacher and Zhou Guanyu one position each.

Alonso and Zhou are two of four drivers who had already taken grid penalties, along with a ten-place drop for Charles Leclerc and five places for Sergio Perez.

Topics

esteban ocon

united states grand prix

yuki tsunoda

Formula 1

Chris Medland

While studying Sports Journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, Chris managed to talk his way into working at the British Grand Prix in 2008 and was retained for three years before joining ESPN F1 as Assistant Editor. After three further years at ESPN, a spell as F1 Editor at Crash Media Group was followed by the major task of launching F1i.com’s English-language website and running it as Editor. Present at every race since the start of 2014, he has continued building his freelance portfolio, working with international titles. As well as writing for RACER, his broadcast work includes television appearances on F1 TV and as a presenter and reporter on North America's live radio coverage on SiriusXM.

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