All four Red Bull-backed cars and a McLaren face grid penalties for the Russian Grand Prix on Sunday, meaning that a quarter of the 20-car starting grid will drop down the order.
Among the drivers is Max Verstappen who turns 21 on race day but his chances of becoming the first 20-year-old to take a pole position in Formula 1 is now impossible.
The Dutch driver would normally have to start from the back of the grid but where exactly where he will line-up remains uncertain due to the number of similar penalties handed out to other drivers.
Verstappen’s teammate Daniel Ricciardo, Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly and Brendon Hartley, as well as McLaren’s Fernando Alonso, were also hit with grid drops to the wrong end of the grid.
Red Bull are not prepared to risk the C-Spec Renault engine in Mexico and have thus reverted to the B-Spec engine for the remaining six races of the season.
Honda have unleashed a major upgrade for the weekend in Sochi, meaning that both Toro Rosso drivers Pierre Gasly and Brendon Hartley also drop to the back of the grid.
Talk is that the Japanese engineers have found another (astounding) 40bhp from their PU package with the performance update which Gasly and Hartley are sampling this weekend.
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