23/06/2018
NEWS STORY
Brendon Hartley will start the French GP from the back of the grid after Honda elected to change the engine in his Toro Rosso.
There were fears the kiwi would be penalised after he was told late in FP2 to stop his car, the Toro Rosso driver having been 15th on the timesheets.
Following the "PU issue encountered yesterday in Brendon’s car, we have now sent it back to Japan for further investigation," said Honda this morning.
"We have changed all 6 components last night, therefore Brendon will start from the back of the grid because of the penalties we incurred.
"The PU specification we’ll be running today is the latest one," the Japanese manufacturer added, "the same as yesterday and also the Canadian GP. We hope to have a good race with Brendon and try to work our way forward."
Changing all the components first time around means a drop of 35 places in total, while the 2018 regulations stipulate that anything over 15 places means automatic demotion to the back of the grid.
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