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McLaren’s Lando Norris will have a 10-place grid penalty for exceeding the permitted number of engine parts at the Belgian Grand Prix.
The world champion’s car will be fitted with a new power electronics unit, Norris’ fourth of the season, one more than allowed.
The ‘Power Electronics’ is the computer that controls the battery, and it has caused a number of issues with Mercedes teams this season.
McLaren decided to fit the new unit with the latest version of the Mercedes engine because it lacked the reliability tweaks that Norris had been using, introduced this year after a series of failures.
The team chose to take the penalty this weekend because it is relatively easy to pass at Spa, and it is the last race before introducing the first of two significant improvement packages.
McLaren have fallen behind the top four teams in recent races as rivals introduce upgrades, but hope the aerodynamics package, which will be offered at the Hungarian and Dutch Grands Prix on either side of Formula 1’s summer break, will bring them back into contention.
In what they expected to be no more competitive than the previous race in Britain, they decided it was better to take a grid penalty in Belgium, where overtaking was relatively straightforward, than to settle for Hungary, where the car performed better and overtaking was difficult.
Norris’ grid penalty comes after a troubled start to McLaren’s season, both in terms of performance and reliability.
Norris was unable to start the Chinese Grand Prix in March after a terminal problem with its power electronics unit, and the second example of that class had to be scrapped after experiencing problems in practice at the following race in Japan.
The Japanese part has been fixed, but in practice in Monaco, the terminal has encountered a problem.
McLaren’s statement: “While the power electronics unit we installed in Japan and used in every session since Miami has worked reliably, Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains have introduced a series of reliability tweaks with their new power electronics system.
“However, to take advantage of these improvements we would have to drop a 10-place grid penalty on the Lando car to take a new class.”
The statement added: “We now plan to use this fourth power electronics unit for the rest of the season to maximize reliability while reducing the sport penalties on Lando.”
McLaren will have a new rear wing design at Spa, which the team hopes will better suit the unique characteristics of the high-speed track that flows around the Ardennes forests.
This wing will have a more conventional opening style in straight line mode instead of the aggressive designs introduced by Ferrari and Red Bull this season.
Red Bull had to revert to a conventional wing this weekend after Max Verstappen suffered high-speed crashes in the previous two races due to a design problem.
