Adrian Newey has revealed that Daniel Ricciardo will be facing a grid penalty at this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix, although it is unclear to just how many places he will be penalised.
Ricciardo managed to win the Monaco Grand Prix last time out despite the MGU-K failing on him with two-thirds of the race remaining, but the Australian was still able to control the race despite the problems that faced him.
The result also propelled the Aston Martin Red Bull Racing driver into third place in the Drivers’ Championship and now has the same amount of wins in 2018 as both Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel.
But Ricciardo will find it tough to repeat his 2014 victory at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve this time thanks to the penalties coming his way, as revealed by his Chief Technical Officer Newey.
“He will definitely be taking some penalties in Montreal, we haven’t heard at the moment just how many,” said Newey to Reuters. “One of things there is whether the battery was damaged or not in Monaco, so until we know that from Renault we don’t know exactly what we’re facing.
“The [MGU-]K is definitely a penalty”
Some reports in the media said that the MGU-K that Ricciardo used in Monaco could be repaired by Renault Sport and reused by Red Bull but Newey has poured water on that theory, particularly as the unit that was taken from the RB14 following the race was burnt out.
“I rather doubt it, considering it caught fire and was a burnt out, charred wreck,” said Newey. “I would be somewhat surprised at that one.”
