F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Power unit update: Penalties for Ricciardo, Hartley and Gasly

Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo and Toro Rosso drivers Brendon Hartley and Pierre Gasly have all been confirmed with grid penalties for this weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix after taking new power unit elements.

All three have needed a new MGU-H for Friday morning's first free practice. In each case, that's the eighth unit their cars have taken on during the course of the 2017 season.

Drivers are permitted to use only four of each of the six elements that make up the power unit under current regulations. Any more than that and they start getting some painful grid penalties.

An eighth unit incurs a ten place grid penalty, which is what Ricciardo, Hartley and Gasly all now face on Sunday.

In addition, Ricciardo has a new energy store and a fresh control electronics. These are the fourth of both units the Austrlian has used this season. That means they are within his season's allowance and do not cost him any further grid places.

But with Hartley pulling off track midway through FP1 with apparent engine problems, and Gasly missing much of the session as the team investigated his STR12, there may be more penalties to come for the Toro Rosso drivers.

Here's the updated situation with power element usage coming into this weekend's Grand Prix, including the latest changes announced for FP1.

Power Element Usage

Driver	ICE	TC	MGU-H	MGU-K	ES	CE
Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton	4	4	4	4	3	3
Valtteri Bottas	4	4	4	4	3	3
Red Bull/TAG Heuer
Daniel Ricciardo	6	6	8	3	4	4
Max Verstappen	6	5	6	3	4	4
Ferrari
Sebastian Vettel	5	5	5	4	4	4
Kimi Räikkönen	4	4	4	4	4	4
Force India/Mercedes
Sergio Pérez	4	4	4	4	2	2
Esteban Ocon	4	4	4	4	3	3
Williams/Mercedes
Felipe Massa	4	4	4	4	3	2
Lance Stroll	4	4	4	4	2	2
McLaren/Honda
Fernando Alonso	9	11	11	8	7	6
Stoffel Vandoorne	10	12	12	9	7	7
Toro Rosso/Renault
Brendon Hartley	7	6	8	3	5	5
Pierre Gasly	5	6	8	3	4	5
Haas/Ferrari
Romain Grosjean	4	4	4	4	4	4
Kevin Magnussen	4	4	4	4	4	4
Renault
Nico Hülkenberg	5	5	6	4	4	4
Carlos Sainz	5	6	6	3	4	4
Sauber/Ferrari
Marcus Ericsson	4	4	4	4	4	4
Pascal Wehrlein	4	4	4	4	4	4

Notes:

ICE: Internal Combustion Engine
TC: Turbo Charger
MGU-H: Motor Generator Unit – Heat
MGU-K: Motor Generator Unit – Kinetic
ES: Energy Store
CE: Control Electronics

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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.