Sutil handed five-place grid penalty

Adrian Sutil has been given a five-place grid penalty and received two penalty points on his Super Licence after the FIA deemed the Sauber driver to have held up Lotus’s Romain Grosjean in an “unsafe manner” during qualifying in Bahrain.

Sutil had qualified 18th, and will therefore start the third race of the season from the back of the grid.

The German impeded Grosjean between Turns 13 and 14 in the final minutes of Q1, forcing the Frenchman off the track. Despite the incident Grosjean was just able to squeeze through into Q2, and will line up 16th for Sunday’s Grand Prix.

Sutil’s demotion means that Caterham’s Kamui Kobayashi is promoted to 18th, with Marussia’s Jules Bianchi now sharing the tenth row with the second Caterham of Marcus Ericsson. Marussia's Max Chilton, meanwhile, will start from 21st, alongside Sutil.

Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo also drops 10 places as part of his penalty for an unsafe release at the last round in Malaysia. He thus starts 13th.