Vettel penalised five places

Adding to the already torrid start to the Russian Grand Prix race weekend, Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel has been penalised five places for an unscheduled gearbox change.

Although the German expressed his disappointment at the penalty, Vettel was more concerned that he lost an hour of valuable data gathering during FP2 after he his car came to a standstill when he lost the electronics of his car.

He also added that the Mercedes duo consisting of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg look like a worrying threat.

"It is a bit of a shame, as we are now missing quite a few laps especially for the long runs and in the race trim," commented the four-time World Champion.

"This would have gotten us much more information on how competitive we would be on Sunday.

"Kimi (Raikkonen) had to do the homework for the whole team and that was not too bad, as we roughly know what to expect, and for sure we can also learn from what other people did.

"We have already seen that they are again very strong here and especially Lewis (Hamilton) got very well into the rhythm.

"The good news is that the balance of our car feels quite good and the track is suiting us more and more. But still I have to say that we are not the favourites here."