Five-place penalty for Kobayashi

Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi has been handed a five-place grid penalty for the F1 2010 Hungarian Grand Prix, after he failed to stop for weighing at the end of Q1.

Kobayashi was called in by the stewards at the end of the opening session, but he failed to see the red lights and continued back to his garage. Consequently he will now start the race from the back row of the grid in 23rd place.

"I obviously went past a red light in the pit lane and missed going to the FIA scales. I just didn't see it," he explained.

Sauber had hoped to get both cars in the top-ten shoot-out today, but while Pedro de la Rosa secured P9, Kobayashi struggled. Indeed he didn't even make it passed the first hurdle, held up by the Hispania of Bruno Senna on his final flying lap and also just plainly unhappy with his car.

"I am very disappointed," Kobayashi added. "We have done a lot of set-up changes since we arrived here, but still I am not pleased. To me the car feels strange, different from what I'm used to. I don't have any grip.

"The situation was quite difficult for me and then the team was over-optimistic sending me out on the harder tyres for my second run in Q1. I believe on the softer compound I would have managed to get at least to Q2. However, mistakes happen."

Sauber technical director, James Key admitted that the tyre call was probably a mistake: "Kamui caught some traffic on two of his laps in the final run, which spoilt the laps for him. Nevertheless, had we gone with the softer tyres, I believe he would still have gone through. That was our mistake, and we apologise to Kamui for that."