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Lando Norris will start ten places lower than his qualifying position for this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps.
The McLaren driver will incur a ten-place grid penalty after his team fitted a fourth control electronics unit to his car for the season. This move by the Woking-based team exceeds the permitted limit of three such components for the British driver. The decision stems from numerous reliability issues of this nature that have plagued the team since the start of the campaign.
Confirming the widely anticipated news, McLaren detailed the various problems they've encountered. They also noted that they can now benefit from the software improvements introduced by Mercedes for this component.
"The first power unit control electronics on car #1 suffered a fatal issue in China, meaning Lando couldn't start the race. Lando's second power unit control electronics, fitted in Japan, had to be withdrawn for repairs after issues in free practice. This necessitated a switch to a third and final unit within the allowed allocation. Although the second unit was successfully repaired after the Japanese Grand Prix, it suffered a fatal issue in Free Practice 2 in Monaco and was again removed from our inventory. While the unit we installed in Japan and used in every session since Miami has been reliable, Mercedes has, in the interim, introduced a series of reliability fixes for their new power unit control electronics systems. However, to benefit from these improvements, we must take a 10-place grid penalty for Lando's car to install a new component," the team explained.
The Spa circuit is an ideal location to serve a penalty, as overtaking opportunities are significantly more plentiful there compared to the next two rounds.
"We've chosen to do this in Belgium – a track where overtaking is relatively more common, unlike the next two races in Hungary and Zandvoort. We now plan to use this fourth power unit control electronics unit for the remainder of the season to maximize reliability while minimizing sporting penalties for Lando," McLaren stated.
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