2026-07-17 09:31:14
Lando Norris will take a 10-place grid penalty at the Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday (19.07.27).
The McLaren driver’s car is to be fitted with a new power electronics unit, the fourth such element the vehiccle has used this season, despite only three being permitted without penalty under F1 regulations, automatically triggering the punishment.
McLaren are fitting the fresh unit to take advantage of battery reliability improvements from Mercedes after failures earlier in the season.
A McLaren statement read: “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“Lando’s second power electronics unit, fitted in Japan, needed to be withdrawn for remedial work after suffering issues in Free Practice, which necessitated moving to a third and final power electronics unit within the permitted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unit was able to be repaired after the Japanese Grand Prix, it suffered a terminal issue in FP2 in Monaco, and was withdrawn from our allocation once again.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.”
Lando noted he is on “on the back foot” as a result, but is determined to do his best.
He said: “The main thing is just another weekend, another weekend to look forward to.
“Try to race well, try to qualify well and try to have a good weekend. We’ll see what we can improve on. It certainly won’t be made easier by the grid penalty but that’s just because we’ve just been unlucky in the first part of the season losing a lot of different bits, whether it was the engine or the power unit or the controls.
“I’m just on the back foot from a spare part’s point of view but that’s out of my hands and out of our hands in some way. That’s life, just got to take it on the chin and deal with some of the penalties I have coming up.
“But this is certainly a better track to take the penalties in than the next two. It’s part of it but we can still look forward to trying to have a good weekend.”
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