10/10/2021
NEWS STORY
Daniel Ricciardo will start today's Turkish Grand Prix from the back of the grid after taking on new engine components.
Overnight, the Australian, who qualified 16th, took on a new ICE, Turbocharger, MGU-H and exhaust system.
The McLaren driver failed to make in into Q2 after running out of time in terms of trying for another flying lap.
"Obviously it's not where we want to be," he said after the session. "The track was steadily drying and everyone just kept improving a chunk on that last lap.
"We didn't make as big a step on that second set of softs, and we've found it tricky with the soft most of the weekend so it's just unfortunate to be so far down the grid.
"We'll find a way to come back tomorrow and try to understand the soft tyre a bit better," he added. "It was probably also a bit of timing, we got quite a few yellow flags in Turn One which put us out of sync early."
It's understood that the move was driven by the desire to add another engine to his pool as the other Mercedes-powered drivers look for similar opportunities to take on a new unit.
The change comes at a time Toto Wolff has reported "unusual noises" from the Mercedes power unit which are thought to be a factor in the decision to change Lewis Hamilton's ICE as opposed to the whole engine.
"We have seen unusual noises within the combustion engine that aren't completely understood at that stage yet and therefore caused some trouble," said the Austrian.
"In the past we had engines that basically failed," he added. "Now it's about containing the problem because, in that phase, redesigning parts is not something you would tackle.
"Balancing performance and reliability has always been the key metric in the last couple of years," he explained, "and it will be also going forward. We will not be carrying any deficits into next year because the deficits are being understood. Now it's about finding the solutions that contain these.
"The other parts like the turbo or the other auxiliary elements are in a wonderful shape, easily within the mileage limits," he said of the ICE change. "Therefore we didn't need to take new components."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Istanbul, here.