Yuki Tsunoda, AlphaTauri, Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, 2021

Stroll and Tsunoda to start at back of grid due to power unit penalties

2021 Mexico City Grand Prix

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Lance Stroll and Yuki Tsunoda will start the Mexico City Grand Prix from the back row of the grid after exceeding their maximum allocation of power unit parts.

The Aston Martin and AlphaTauri drivers have taken their fourth internal combustion engines, turbochargers and MGU-Hs, exceeding the limit of three per driver over the course of the season.

Tsunoda has also taken his fourth MGU-K, another violation, and Stroll his third control electronics, which also exceeds the limit. As these changes would incur grid drops in excess of 15 places, they will be required to start the race from the back of the grid.

Stroll’s change means all Mercedes-powered drivers bar Lando Norris have now exceeded their allocation and taken grid penalties. Aston Martin CEO Otmar Szafnauer said the decision to change Stroll’s engine this weekend, two weeks after doing the same with Sebastian Vettel’s car, arose because of the problems Mercedes have encountered with their power units.

“I think the issues were discovered earlier on in the year,” Szafnauer told Sky. “Hopefully the root cause has been fixed now but because of it we need to fit another engine for each driver.”

Stroll and Tsunoda have also taken new exhausts, as has Sergio Perez, all incurring no further penalties.

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No. Car Engine Driver ICE TC MGU-H MGU-K ES CE EX
77 Mercedes Mercedes Valtteri Bottas 6 5 5 4 2 3 6
14 Alpine Renault Fernando Alonso 4 4 4 4 3 3 9
10 AlphaTauri Honda Pierre Gasly 4 4 4 4 3 3 7
33 Red Bull Honda Max Verstappen 4 4 4 4 3 3 7
22 AlphaTauri Honda Yuki Tsunoda 4 4 4 4 3 3 7
55 Ferrari Ferrari Carlos Sainz Jnr 4 4 4 3 3 3 7
11 Red Bull Honda Sergio Perez 4 4 4 4 4 4 6
16 Ferrari Ferrari Charles Leclerc 4 4 4 3 3 3 6
5 Aston Martin Mercedes Sebastian Vettel 4 4 4 3 2 2 5
18 Aston Martin Mercedes Lance Stroll 4 4 4 2 2 3 4
3 McLaren Mercedes Daniel Ricciardo 4 4 4 2 2 2 4
31 Williams Mercedes Nicholas Latifi 4 4 4 2 2 2 4
63 Williams Mercedes George Russell 4 4 4 2 2 2 4
44 Mercedes Mercedes Lewis Hamilton 4 3 3 3 2 2 4
31 Alpine Renault Esteban Ocon 3 3 3 3 2 2 8
7 Alfa Romeo Ferrari Kimi Raikkonen 3 3 3 2 2 2 6
99 Alfa Romeo Ferrari Antonio Giovinazzi 3 3 3 2 2 2 6
4 McLaren Mercedes Lando Norris 3 3 3 3 2 2 5
47 Haas Ferrari Mick Schumacher 3 3 3 2 2 2 5
9 Haas Ferrari Nikita Mazepin 3 3 3 2 2 2 5

2021 Mexico City Grand Prix

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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3 comments on “Stroll and Tsunoda to start at back of grid due to power unit penalties”

  1. Just when I hoped this weekend wouldn’t feature any PU allocation penalties – hopefully, Brazil.

    1. RandomMallard (@)
      5th November 2021, 19:28

      @jerejj I expect Brazil may feature a few penalties. IMO if Merc know they have to take another PU or PU elements for Hamilton, and that is purely if, then if they have any sense they’d do it at Brazil. It’s probably the track with the best overtaking possibilities left on the calendar, and we have seen good recovery drives from the back there before (I mean Sainz went from last to the podium in 2019. Yes it required 5 of the 6 frontrunners to have issues but he would probably been on for a solid top 10 finish without it anyway, possibly even second-best of the rest behind Gasly)

      1. @randommallard Brazil has Sprint, which complicates things, although Merc still took hits for Bottas in Monza.
        We shall wait & see.

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