Pierre Gasly will start this weekend’s United States Grand Prix from the back of the grid after changing his power unit.
The Toro Rosso driver has taken his seventh new engine, turbocharger, MGU-H and his sixth MGU-K.
Drivers’ power unit components
| No. | Car | Engine | Driver | ICE | TC | MGU-H | MGU-K | ES | CE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 | Toro Rosso | Honda | Brendon Hartley | 7 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 3 | 4 |
| 10 | Toro Rosso | Honda | Pierre Gasly | 7 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 3 | 3 |
| 27 | Renault | Renault | Nico Hulkenberg | 5 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| 3 | Red Bull | TAG Heuer | Daniel Ricciardo | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 |
| 14 | McLaren | Renault | Fernando Alonso | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 |
| 33 | Red Bull | TAG Heuer | Max Verstappen | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 |
| 77 | Mercedes | Mercedes | Valtteri Bottas | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 55 | Renault | Renault | Carlos Sainz Jnr | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 2 | McLaren | Renault | Stoffel Vandoorne | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 9 | Sauber | Ferrari | Marcus Ericsson | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| 8 | Haas | Ferrari | Romain Grosjean | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 20 | Haas | Ferrari | Kevin Magnussen | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 31 | Sauber | Ferrari | Charles Leclerc | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 5 | Ferrari | Ferrari | Sebastian Vettel | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 44 | Mercedes | Mercedes | Lewis Hamilton | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 11 | Force India | Mercedes | Sergio Perez | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 31 | Force India | Mercedes | Esteban Ocon | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 18 | Williams | Mercedes | Lance Stroll | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 35 | Williams | Mercedes | Sergey Sitorkin | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 7 | Ferrari | Ferrari | Kimi Raikkonen | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
ICE: Internal Combustion Engine
TC: Turbocharger
MGU-K: Motor Generator Unit – Kinetic
MGU-H: Moto Generator Unit: Heat
ES: Energy Store
CE: Control Electronics
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BaKano (@bakano)
19th October 2018, 16:56
Hartley will also get new PU components albeit they will only make the change this evening. Honda has confirmed so both cars will start from the back.
BasCB (@bascb)
19th October 2018, 19:22
Honda really making huge steps in progress, right.
bull mello (@bullmello)
19th October 2018, 19:52
Supposedly more power than Renault. How’s that working out?
Mike
19th October 2018, 23:12
Yep, lots of boasting with little results.
Time is running out for Honda to get it right.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
19th October 2018, 17:08
Honda better be aggressively testing 2019 concepts… RBR will be quite unpleasant if they’re forced to change PUs like this next year.
anon
19th October 2018, 17:34
@phylyp, this is a modified version of the latest specification engine to deal with current teething issues – whilst originally it was supposedly just getting a remapping to sort out those problems with oscillations through the drive train, Honda have now said that it has had to make further physical modifications to address other unspecified issues that were identified in Japan. https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/honda-penalties-changes-usgp-grid/3197963/
Phylyp (@phylyp)
19th October 2018, 17:46
anon – thanks for that summary and the link, much appreciated.
BMF66
19th October 2018, 18:26
Unspecified? Take a wild guess. Yes, engine failure.
mystic one (@mysticus)
19th October 2018, 19:20
it could just be individual components and not whole engine development…?
BasCB (@bascb)
19th October 2018, 19:25
ok, I guess that is better than something giving up without them even really being sure what. But fact remains that the engine was put in in one session, then taken out to fine tune the SW, then they put it in last race weekend, but didn’t manage to get it working as it should in one car at all, and now they put in a new engine because it needed more than just tuning the electronics.
Really more of the same we have seen with McLaren in the last few years with updates not coming in time, not delivering or proving to be unreliable. I won’t be expecting too much for next year either.
BMF66
19th October 2018, 18:34
They are always aggressively testing. They just aren’t good enough and it’s a shame that there’s no other engines in F1 for teams to choose. The worst is 4th best, and it is the worst by a large margin.
BMF66
19th October 2018, 18:24
14 engines Honda have went through already. They really are dire.
The only reason they have shown a power increase is because their engine is newer most of the time.
mystic one (@mysticus)
19th October 2018, 19:18
Toro Rossos are confirmed to be guinea pig for honda this season, so as many changes as possible is gonna give them the idea which formula mix works… it looks bad, but if it is for the next season, nothing wrong with it as points not much an issue it seems…
BasCB (@bascb)
19th October 2018, 19:28
Yeah, that is what they make of it now. But in between they keep saying they see progress and large steps forward. We’ve seen that same attetude in the first and then in the second year with Honda.
To me it seems things are still as lagging behind as we saw in that excellent documentary where all of McLaren’s detractors/RB fanboys keps saying that surely it was all because of the Woking team and Honda was put in a worse light than they should be.
BasCB (@bascb)
19th October 2018, 19:29
Yeah, that is what they make of it now. But in between they keep saying they see progress and large steps forward. We’ve seen that same attetude in the first and then in the second year with Honda.
To me it seems things are still as lagging behind as we saw in that excellent documentary where all of McLaren’s detractors/RB fans keps saying that surely it was all because of the Woking team and Honda was put in a worse light than they should be.
Patrick (@anunaki)
19th October 2018, 21:14
Hopefully it’s just more improving for 2019
Dale
20th October 2018, 12:31
It was obvious that Honda did a ‘Suzuka special’ engine for their home race.
They tested it in the car at Russia, then took it out immediately … used it to get two cars into Q3 (albeit with some luck anyway) … and had no choice but to replace it for this weekend in both cars as it was dead, finished, kaput.
The fact that their one race special engine was still slower than their competitors – who’s engines are designed to last 6-8 races – just shows how useless Honda are performing in F1.