Horner urges Strategy Group to reconsider grid penalty rules

Red Bull Racing's Christian Horner is hoping the grid penalty farce which marred the Italian GP will change F1's agenda on the matter.

The Monza race saw nine drivers demoted on Sunday's grid as a result of transgressing power unit component rules.

Both Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen were among those sent down the order and who saw their afternoon of racing impacted by the nonsensical grid penalty rule.

But as Horner points out, the root of the problem is F1's extraordinarily complex V6 hybrid engine, the existence of which has only complicated the sport since its introduction in 2014, contends the Red Bull Racing boss.

"This engine has done nothing positive for F1 since it was introduced," Horner said.

"What concerns me is that we are going to three engines for next year with more races. To me that should be number one on the agenda at the next strategy meeting.

• F1i's Driver Ratings for the Italian GP

"I tried to get it changed at a meeting earlier in the year but there was no support.

"I would hope that would now be different with teams incurring and staring down the barrel of future penalties between now and the end of the year."

Horner recognizes however that F1 needs a form of punishment to prevent teams from relying on an excess number of engines in a season.

"Obviously the penalty needs to be a significant deterrent because the whole purpose of this limitation of engines was also cost savings," he said.

"But it is not saving the costs because the engines are going on a world tour anyway.

"They are being used, and you are just incurring penalties as a result. So perhaps we need to get back to a more equitable balance, maybe five engines is the right number than four going to three."

Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter