Lando Norris to take 10-place grid penalty at Belgian Grand Prix

McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team will fit car Number 1 with a fourth power electronics this weekend in Spa, exceeding our permitted number of allocated power electronics units and incurring a 10-place grid penalty.

Car Number 1's first power electronics unit suffered a terminal issue in China, which meant Lando was unable to start the race. Lando’s second power electronics unit, fitted in Japan, needed to be withdrawn for remedial work after suffering issues in Free Practice, which necessitated moving to a third and final power electronics unit within the permitted allocation. While the second power electronics unit was able to be repaired after the Japanese Grand Prix, it suffered a terminal issue in FP2 in Monaco, and was withdrawn from our allocation once again.

While the power electronics unit we installed in Japan, and have used in every session since Miami, has worked reliably, Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains has since introduced a series of reliability fixes to their new power electronics systems. However, in order to take advantage of these improvements, we must incur a 10-place grid penalty on Lando’s car in order to take a new unit. We have chosen to do this in Belgium, a circuit where overtaking is relatively more prevalent, as opposed to the following two events in Hungary and Zandvoort. We now plan to use this fourth power electronics unit for the remainder of the season, in order to maximise reliability while minimising sporting penalties on Lando.