Lando Norris hopes Belgian Grand Prix grid penalty doesn't end his Spa weekend before it starts

This will be Norris' fourth power electronics unit this season, as McLaren have suffered from reliability woes with their Mercedes power unit. The first unit failed terminally in China, where the reigning Formula 1 Champion could not even start the race.

He also struggled with issues with the second unit in Japan, which was fixed but then failed during Monaco practice.

McLaren revealed: "While the power electronics unit we installed in Japan and have used in every session ​since Miami has worked reliably, Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains has since introduced a series of reliability fixes.

"However, ‌in ⁠order to take advantage of these improvements, we must incur a 10-place grid penalty on Lando's car in order to take a new unit.

"We have chosen to do this in Belgium, a circuit where overtaking is relatively more prevalent, as opposed to the following two events in Hungary and Zandvoort [Netherlands]," McLaren concluded.

Commenting on his penalty, Norris said: "I hope it's not the end of my weekend before it's started. I am still confident we can have a good weekend.

“It won’t be made easier by the grid penalty, but that is because we have been unlucky losing different bits, the engine, ​the power unit, or the controls.

"I am on the back foot in terms of a spare parts point of view, but that is out of my hands. That’s life; you’ve got to take it on the chin.

"This is a better ⁠track to ​take the penalty than the next two," Norris, who was on pole in Spa in 2025, concluded.

Oscar Piastri, on the other hand, will have an upgraded Mercedes power unit without any consequences since his parts consumption remained within the allowed quota. (Reporting by Agnes Carlier)