The German suffered a failure six laps from the chequered flag at the British GP when his car got briefly stuck in seventh gear.

Radio instructions from the pitwall helped him overcome the issues but earned him a 10-second time penalty for breaking F1's team radio rules.

Rosberg had previously incurred a grid penalty for a gearbox change during the Austrian Grand Prix, after a suspension failure sent him into the barriers.

The six grand prix duty cycle of the current gearbox, which was was fitted as a replacement in Austria, is due to last until the end of the Italy weekend.

Should it, in turn, need to be replaced for the Budapest event, then that will lead to a five-place grid penalty – which will be particularly painful as overtaking is so hard at the Hungaroring.

Despite the public nature of the gearbox failure on Sunday, it is unclear if the issues Rosberg suffered actually caused any physical damage to components.

Under F1's rules, as soon as a gearbox is used for the first time, the FIA attaches seals to it to ensure that no significant moving parts can be rebuilt or replaced.

This means that Mercedes will not be able to perform any detailed checks until it gets to Hungary next week. There, under FIA supervision, changes to gears and dog rings (excluding final drives or reduction gears) can be made for others with identical specification.

Before then, however, Mercedes is able to conduct some visual inspections and it is understood that early analysis has not highlighted any cause for major concern yet.