McLaren’s Fernando Alonso will take a 35-place grid drop at the Belgian Grand Prix for replacing his power unit after a water leak kept him out of FP1.
Honda arrived at Spa with an updated engine after spending 7 tokens on upgrading the turbo and the combustion. Both Alonso and Button were given their 5th PU’s ahead of Free Practice 1.
After just three installation laps McLaren found a water leak on Alonso’s engine. This kept him out for the rest of the session.
As a precaution Honda took the decision to replace the entire PU which consists of the engine, turbo, MGU-H, MGU-K, energy store and control electronics. This means that Alonso takes a 6th of each component and gets a collective 35-place grid penalty.
With new regulations coming into place will mean that Alonso can only move to 22nd on the grid.