Liam Lawson will take a grid penalty at this weekend’s United States Grand Prix as a result of RB exceeding the limit of power unit components.
The New Zealander is making his first start of the season at COTA, but since he is replacing Daniel Ricciardo he also takes over Ricciardo’s car in terms of power unit components. That meant a complete new power unit that is being introduced at Circuit of the Americas takes him above the limits and will force him to start Sunday’s race from the back of the grid.
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Lawson has exceeded the maximum-allowed components in all six areas of the power unit – internal combustion engine, turbocharger, MGU-H, MGU-K, energy store and control electronics – and each component carries a 10-place grid penalty. As per the regulations, anything more than a 15 cumulative grid position penalty means a driver must start behind any other classified driver.
Although it’s a Sprint event, the penalty applies to Sunday’s grand prix, to prevent teams targeting Sprints to lessen the impact of a significant drop.
Lawson ended the only practice session on Friday in 13th place on the classification, a little over 0.1s slower than teammate Yuki Tsunoda.