Horner expects more engine penalties for Red Bull

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Red Bull boss Christian Horner has admitted that the team is almost certain to incur further penalties during the remainder of the 2017 season.

Red Bull's TAG Heuer-branded Renault engines struggled for reliability early in the season. The manufacturer has been working hard to improve the situation. However, Horner is aware the early failures are almost certain to come back to haunt Red Bull in the part of the year.

"We are for sure going to incur a further penalty," he said. "I hope we have the choice strategically where we take that penalty.

"It is not likely we will get to the end of the year without incurring another penalty.

Red Bull took a big hit with grid penalties at Monza. The team opted to fit new power unit elements to both their cars. In addition, Daniel Ricciardo's car needed a gearbox change over the weekend.

But despite starting from 16th place on the grid, Ricciardo fought back and narrowly missed getting on the podium.

"We couldn't have done much more from where we started," he said afterwards. "Of course I wanted to be up there on the podium as it looked unreal."

His team mate Max Verstappen's race was compromised by contact with Williams' Felipe Massa. After pitting for a puncture, he went on to to finish in eighth place.

However, just getting to the finish was a success for the Dutch teen, who has retired from six of the 13 races so far this year.

Horner blasts Renault for delivering 'below par service'

Horner agreed that this was a sign that the Renault power units were now beginning to show green shoots of improved reliability.

"They have certainly responded, which is encouraging," Horner said of Renault's latest push for greater reliability.

"The encouraging thing is that they seem to be taking it seriously. They are not putting their head in the sand.

"Hopefully that will follow an upward trend between now and the end of the year," he added.

However, Horner was also mindful that it was still early days in terms of Renault's reliability push. While there were no problems for the team at Monza, that was because both units were brand new.

"If we would have had an issue with the first engine in its cycle it would have been fairly catastrophic," he pointed out.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.