Revised starting grid: Vettel down to 7th, Hamilton stays 10th

Nico Rosberg will start the Russian Grand Prix from pole position, with just one change as Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel serves a five-place grid drop for changing his gearbox ahead of the event. He qualified second and will therefore start seventh, promoting Valtteri Bottas, Kimi Raikkonen, Felipe Massa, Daniel Ricciardo and Sergio Perez a place each.

Meanwhile Lewis Hamilton, who suffered engine trouble during Q2, will remain tenth. There were fears within Mercedes that he may drop further down the grid, however the team managed to switch the Briton back to the engine used in China, whilst also replacing the MGU-H, energy store and turbocharger.

Usually that would bring about a penalty as the unit is a different specification to that used during qualifying in Russia following the use of two development tokens to upgrade the fuel system. Mercedes however avoided the penalty by flying a replacement fuel system in overnight by private jet from their Brixworth facility, meaning the replacement engine matches that of the failed unit.

2016 Russian Grand Prix Starting Grid

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Pos	Driver	Team	+/-
1	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes
2	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	+1
3	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	+1
4	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	+1
5	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	+1
6	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	+1
7	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	-5
8	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull
9	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso-Ferrari
10	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes
11	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso-Ferrari
12	Jenson Button	McLaren-Honda
13	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes
14	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Honda
15	Romain Grosjean	Haas-Ferrari
16	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas-Ferrari
17	Kevin Magnussen	Renault
18	Jolyon Palmer	Renault
19	Felipe Nasr	Sauber-Ferrari
20	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor-Mercedes
21	Rio Haryanto	Manor-Mercedes
22	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber-Ferrari