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GRID PENATLIES FOR DANIEL RICCIARDO AT MONZA

Grid penalties for Daniel Ricciardo at Monza - Photo: LAT

By Bruce Williams

Grid penalties for Daniel Ricciardo at Monza - Photo: LAT

Grid penalties for Daniel Ricciardo at Monza – Photo: LAT

Daniel Ricciardo will go into this weekends Italian Grand Prix with a grid penalty hanging over his head.

His Red Bull team have elected to sacrifice the race at Monza, giving Ricciardo and team mate Max Verstappen new Engine, Turbo and MGUH, with both drivers receiving the associated 20 place grid penalty, in order to give the team the best chance at the next race in Singapore.

Both Ricciardo and Verstappen were already on their fourth internal combustion engines of the season at Spa, with the Dutch drivers’ engine failing during the that race.

“It’s no secret Singapore is a circuit we’re strong on,” said Ricciardo.

“I don’t want to take any risks in Singapore and risk racing with an old engine or something.

“If we have to be strategic about it, then we will.

“We’re not in a comfortable position now to be taking any risks with the reliability, so we’ll play it safe.”

Ricciardo also admitted that Renault’s poor reliability was now hindering any improvement in horsepower.

“I think the progress has been hindered by reliability,” he said.

“If we had better reliability we could then start to turn it up more and more.

“That’s slowed us down more than we would have liked.

“Obviously on top of the disappointment of the DNF is that it then kind of slows everything down for updates and development.

“Hopefully we have less of these issues coming up, but we’re getting later in the season now and still having it.

“We thought we would have cleared this earlier.”

McLaren’s Fernando Alonso will join the Red Bull duo at the rear of grid, after replacing all the engine components.

We’ll have more of the latest news out of the Formula 1 paddock throughout the weekend, so make sure you follow on social media FacebookTwitter and Instagram to keep up to date.