Formula One news

Engine change for Kovalainen

he McLaren team has decided to change Heikki Kovalainen's engine on Saturday morning. The engine change won't cost him a grid penalty though as the Finn did not take his 'free engine switch' this season.

Mercedes motorsport boss Norbert Haug was quoted by Autosport.com saying: "We have changed the engine in Heikki's car as a precaution. We saw a little bit of usage in the engine and this is a joker engine - so there is no grid penalty applied. The decision was taken yesterday.

"If there was not a joker engine we would certainly have done nothing, and the chances that we would not have a problem are really high. It is a critical time of the year and if you have it available you should use it. We have had very good reliability so far. If you see only a risk of one or two percent, maybe it is even less, then you should use it if you can."

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