Lando Norris will incur a 10-place grid penalty for the Belgian Grand Prix after McLaren fitted his car with a fourth control electronics unit of the season.
Therefore, the Woking-based team has now exceeded the British driver's allocation of three, having been set back by multiple related problems across the campaign thus far.
The constructors' champions, upon confirming the news that was already anticipated, laid out the various issues encountered, whilst also pointing out that it can now access the software improvements implemented for the part by Mercedes.
"Car Number 1's first power electronics unit suffered a terminal issue in China, which meant Lando was unable to start the race," the team explained.
"Lando’s second power electronics unit, fitted in Japan, needed to be withdrawn for remedial work after suffering issues in Free Practice, which necessitated moving to a third and final power electronics unit within the permitted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unit was able to be repaired after the Japanese Grand Prix, it suffered a terminal issue in FP2 in Monaco, and was withdrawn from our allocation once again.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."
Spa-Francorchamps is the ideal place to suffer a penalty, as overtaking is far easier than at the subsequent two rounds.
"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," McLaren stated.
"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."
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