Nick Heidfeld Penalised For Chinese Qualifying Incident

Nick Heidfeld has been demoted three grid places on the Chinese Grand Prix grid for impeding David Coulthard during qualifying.

The incident, which in-fumed DC, happened into the final corner just as DC was about to enter his quick lap, Heildfeld cut accross DC to enter the pits straight after passing him into the corner.  As a result DC wasn't able to get the run up over the line, the incident could have cost Couthard up to four tenths of a second.

David Coulthard told British ITV, "That for me just sums up the man - He's not a sportsman."

After deliberating over the incident for over three hours, the stewards decided that Heidfeld wasn't going to improve his time, and that there was no need for the move and  dropped him from sixth to ninth on the grid.

The penalty promotes Sebastian Vettel (Toro Rosso), Jarno Trulli (Toyota) and Sebastien Bourdais (Toro Rosso) to sixth, seventh and eighth places respectively.

The revised grid is as follows:

1.  HAMILTON        McLaren

2.  RAIKKONEN       Ferrari

3.  MASSA           Ferrari

4.  ALONSO          Renault

5.  KOVALAINEN      McLaren

6.  VETTEL          Toro Rosso

7.  TRULLI          Toyota

8.  BOURDAIS        Toro Rosso

9.  HEIDFELD        BMW*
10. PIQUET          Renault

11. KUBICA          BMW

12. GLOCK           Toyota

13. BARRICHELLO     Honda

14. ROSBERG         Williams

15. COULTHARD       Red Bull

16. WEBBER          Red Bull**

17. NAKAJIMA        Williams

18. BUTTON          Honda

19. SUTIL           Force India

20. FISICHELLA      Force India

* penalised three places for impeding Coulthard
** penalised 10 places for engine change