Twenty-two separate penalties have been applied following yesterday's GP3 Series practice session at Hockenheim, of which 21 relate to a single incident, triggered when Addaxs Pedro Sanchez Lopez spun and became stranded at the exit of the final corner.
While marshals worked to retrieve his car under double-waved yellows, two-thirds of the field set their quickest times over the final sector. Several of the offenders pointed out that the drying track meant that they had improved their times over when it had been wetter despite backing off, but after deliberating overnight the stewards decided to apply the penalties right across the board.
Consequently, Pal Varhaug has been dropped seven grid places (his punishment being increased on the grounds that he lost control under yellows as well as speeding up), and Felipe Guimaraes will be docked five places.
Three-place penalties have been applied to Leonardo Cordeiro, Daniel Juncadella, Nigel Melker, Mirko Bortolotti, Adrian Quaife-Hobbs, Ivan Lukashevich, Lucas Foresti, Doru Sechelariu, Daniel Morad, Diego Nunes (who also has a 10-place penalty carried over into this weekend for causing a crash in the previous round at Silverstone) and Oliver Oakes, the latter also picking up an additional 10-place penalty for ignoring a red flag earlier in the session.
Two-place penalties will be applied to Michael Christensen, Simon Trummer, Stefano Coletti, Tobias Hegewald, Vittorio Ghirelli, Alexander Rossi, and provisional front-row starters James Jakes and Robert Wickens, meaning that Carlin's Josef Newgarden appears set to start todays race from pole.
A final grid for the race is still being calculated.