Heavy penalty for Vandoorne in Sochi

Stoffel Vandoorne will start from the back of the grid at the Russian GP following a Power Unit change made by McLaren-Honda at the end of FP1. The Woking team detected a problem with the new MGU-H and decided to replace the entire block due to lack of time before the second test session held from 15 p.m. (14 p.m. French time).

This new change involves the use of a 5th turbo and a 5th MGU-H, which results in a 15-place penalty on the Sochi grid. The regulations require each team not to exceed 4 elements per car for the entire season.

McLaren-Honda is not the only team to already find itself in difficulty for the 4th of the 20 races on the calendar since the Team Ferrari notably installed a 3rd turbo on the SF70H of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen.