Villeneuve's engine damaged in transport

The bizarre incident, which has forced BMW to change Villeneuve's engine ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix, occurred after the end of the European Grand Prix, where the Canadian driver has finished in eighth place.

Villeneuve will lose ten grid positions in this weekend's race as he was scheduled to use the engine for the Barcelona race too.

"It happened at Nurburgring on Sunday when the engine was prepared for transportation. It was probably damaged, we don't know exactly," Theissen told autosport.com.

"I  don't want to go into the details because it would affect certain team members there," added Theissen when asked if the engine had been dropped.

"Under the current regulations you are not allowed to open the engine for further investigation, and we thought the risk would be too high to have him race that engine here.

"So we decided to give him a fresh one and take the penalty of ten grid positions and his Nurburgring engine go to the dyno in Munich and complete two race weekends."