The FIA's recent regulation changes (technically not permitted as it is mid-season and not safety-related, but not a battle the teams chose to fight)  include giving 10-place grid drops to any driver getting three reprimands in a season. Article 18.2 says that drivers receiving 3 reprimands in a season will receive a 10-place grid drop at the next race where it is possible to enforce the penalty. 

It is unclear whether penalties more severe than reprimands will be counted towards the three. What is known is that being late to the driver's parade or press conference 3 times won't trigger the 10-place grid drop - at least 2 of the reprimands must be for dodgy on-track driving of some description. All grid drops will be in addition to any fines or other penalties deemed appropriate at the time of the incidents.

Counting starts as of the British Grand Prix, so even if a driver had 100 reprimands beforehand (as it feels as if Lewis Hamilton's had) will not be penalised for having a somewhat wild early season. 

I intend to log penalties after each race to enable us to figure out who's where along the route to grid drops. Each race, I will list steward's investigations as indicated on the FIA website and on other reputable sites. For each driver who has been subject to such an investigation, I will list how many reprimands (with "procedural" reprimands such as missing the driver parade in brackets), incidents attracting more than reprimands and investigations where no penalty was given. Reprimands are the lowest penalty the FIA can give, so there is no need for a "penalties less than a reprimand" category. 

Try not to worry if you see your favourite driver with a long list of "investigations", for I intend to include any incident where they were cited in the investigation. It may be more helpful to think of it as a "trouble magnet" score than a "trouble causer" one. If your driver (or team) does not appear at all, they haven't been involved in anything that has attracted the stewards' attention so far.

Some penalties do not appear to be put onto the FIA website. As far as possible, I will track these too, linking to where I found out the infraction had occurred. 

Teams aren't affected by this directly, but I decided to track their penalties too. Just because I felt like it. Also in the "just because I felt like it" category is the steward tracker, giving who's done how many races and where. Both start counting from the British Grand Prix.

Note: all links are to the FIA document unless otherwise indicated. They won't work after the build-up to next race unless you have a password, but I don't know anywhere else that keeps copies of the original documents on the internet. 

Stewards this meeting:

Nigel Mansell, Nicholas Deschaux, Lars Osterlind and Dennis Carter. 

Steward tracker: 

Once this year:

Nigel Mansell, Nicholas Deschaux, Lars Osterlind and Dennis Carter. 

Incidents this race:

DRS activation in (wet) FP1 session (document 18)

Regulation(s) cited: None

Involved: Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton

Verdict: No further action required (possible glitch?)

Unsafe release of Jenson Button in race (document 43)

Regulation(s) cited: Article 23.1 (j), Sporting Regulations

Involved: Jenson Button

Verdict: €5000 fine for McLaren, but no penalty for Button (he parked as soon as practicable, but a badly-attached wheelnut is a badly-attached wheelnut)

Unsafe release of Jenson Button in race (document 44)

Regulation(s) cited: Article 23.1 (j), Sporting Regulations

Involved: Kamui Kobayashi

Verdict: €20000 fine for Sauber, but no penalty for Kobayashi (fine possibly bigger than McLaren's due to Pastor Maldonado being lightly hit and a Force India airgun being broken, but Kamui not deemed to have aggravated the incident)

Collision between Kobayashi and Schumacher (grandprix.com race report)

Regulation(s) cited: None (Article 16 Sporting Regulations implied)

Involved: Kamui Kobayashi and Michael Schumacher

Verdict: 10-second stop/go for Schumacher. No penalty for Kobayashi 

Driver penalty tracker:

Mark Webber

Reprimands: 0

Penalties exceeding reprimand: 0

Investigations: 1 (DRS FP1 - Britain)

Lewis Hamilton

Reprimands: 0

Penalties exceeding reprimand: 0

Investigations: 1 (DRS FP1 - Britain)

Jenson Button

Reprimands: 0

Penalties exceeding reprimand: 0

Investigations: 1 (Unsafe release - Britain)

Michael Schumacher

Reprimands: 0

Penalties exceeding reprimand: 1 (10-second stop/go for collision with Kobayashi - Britain)

Investigations: 0

Kamui Kobayashi

Reprimands: 0

Penalties exceeding reprimand: 0

Investigations: 2 (Unsafe releae & collision with Schumacher - Britain) 

Team penalty tracker:  

McLaren 

Reprimands: 0

Penalties exceeding reprimand: 1 (€5000 fine for unsafe release - Button - Britain) 

Investigations: 0

Sauber

Reprimands: 0

Penalties exceeding reprimand: 1 (€20000 fine for unsafe release - Kobayashi - Britain) 

Investigations: 0 

It's high time the engine/gearbox feature got brought back for 2011, now that people have started changing them.

Engines

1 engine (15):

Both Red Bulls - both Aus/Mal

Both Renaults - both Aus/Mal

Both Mercedes - both Aus/Mal

Both Williamses - both Aus/Mal

Both Force Indias - both Aus/Mal

Both Lotuses - both Aus/Mal

Both Hispanias - both Aus/Mal

Glock  - both Aus/Mal

2 engines (9):

Both McLarens - both 1) Aus/Mal Fri 2) Mal Sat-Sun

Both Ferraris - both 1) Aus/Mal Fri 2) Mal Sat-Sun

Both Saubers - both 1) Aus/Mal Fri 2) Mal Sat-Sun

Both Toro Rossos -  both 1) Aus/Mal Fri 2) Mal Sat-Sun

d'Ambrosio -  both 1) Aus/Mal Fri 2) Mal Sat-Sun 

Gearbox

Fresh gearbox (9):

Petrov (2), both Williamses (both 3), Pérez (2), Alguersuari (2), Trulli (2), both Hispanias (both 3) and d'Ambrosio (2).

Not-so-fresh gearbox (4):

Both Mercedes (both 2), Kovalainen (2) and Glock (2).

Quite unfresh gearbox (11):

Both Red Bulls (1), both McLarens (1), both Ferraris (1), Heidfeld (1), both Force Indias (1), Kobayashi (1) and Buemi (1).

Very unfresh gearbox (0):

Nobody, seeing as there's only been 2 races so far ;)

A discussion in Sidepodcast yesterday led to the invention of a new variant of the old classic Monopoly - F1 Monopoly: Deal or No Deal Edition. 

It's just like Monopoly until you land on a Tax space or on someone else's property. Then the owner (or the banker, if it's a tax) makes you an offer. You can either accept the offer or take a card from the pile. The amount on the card is the amount you pay.

Also, instead of houses and hotels, you can buy multiple "boxes" to go on your properties.

And of course it's all themed. Purple for the FIA, light blue for Red Bull, red for Ferrari, light grey for McLaren, dark grey for Mercedes, gold for Renault, green for Force India, dark blue for Williams and white for Sauber. There are also 5 tracks that can be collected in the same way as the stations on the original Monopoly.

Hopefully it will get you through the few hours remaining until the F1 season restarts. Just 2 more things to say:

1) You have until 3 am GMT on March 26 (or the start of Free Practise 3, which is scheduled to start at that time) to put in your entries for the Pre-Season competition. Don't forget delivery to anywhere in the world is included in the prize.

2) It's my birthday on March 26. My fingers are crossed that Force India gives me a good qualifying session for a present.

I am very happy right now because Force India has extended its partnership with both McLaren and Mercedes until the end of 2012. This means that there will be more stability at a time when it really needs it (given the instability in staffing of late) and will continue to be supplied with arguably the best engine/gearbox/hydraulics package on the grid. The quality of the new-generation KERS is unknown, but McLaren had the best one in 2009, so it is likely to produce a very good one again this time around.

Now, if Force India continue to perform well and Vijay Mallya remembers to pay at the right moments, this excellent relationship should make it through to 2013 and beyond ;)

Force India's performance in testing this week has been remarkable. It's difficult to draw any definite conclusions because there are only 4 teams using 2010 machinery at this time (the other three are McLaren, Virgin and Hispania). However, of those four one would normally expect McLaren to be the fastest, given that their team was second in the championship and the others didn't manage to be in the top 6. Also, there could be some variance concerning how much technologies such as the F-duct and adjustable front wing were being used. Such technologies are easy to switch on and off but cannot be used on 2011 cars.

Despite the above, Force India have had the fastest overall time at all three lunch-times so far. On Monday, despite stopping testing some time before the end of the day, Nico Hulkenburg and Paul di Resta finished Monday second and fourth, Paul then finished third yesterday and as I type Adrian Sutil is still first on the timesheet (Robert Kubica only went faster than him an hour-and-a-quarter before the end of the test - as I started typing the next paragraph down). There's only been one small stoppage (di Resta lost some time at the start of Tuesday) and Force India is close to having 300 laps under its belt. In short, Force India has outperformed even McLaren.

The running is primarily helping Force India understand the tyres better; the new Pirellis are understood to be very high-wearing, so managing that wear will be critical in the success of any team this year. The new VJM-04, due to be launched next week, should give a true barometer of how much slower a 2011 car should be than its 2010 equivalent.