It was a gut-wrenchingly disappointing day for Stoffel Vandoorne at the Italian Grand Prix on Sunday. Before the day had even begun, his McLaren team discovered an issue with the MGU-K.
While changing this element alone within the PU is possible, it's extremely time-consuming, and due to the parc ferme restrictions the team judged that this would not be possible in the time allotted.
Therefore, they elected to change Stoffel's engine in its entirety, bringing in a new MGU-K, MGU-H, ICE and turbocharger to the mix, and therefore an associated 25-place grid drop for the race.
This meant Stoffel started in 18th place, just ahead of Fernando in 20th, following his 35-place engine penalty.
After making a great start Stoffel was running strongly from the first lap, making solid progress through the pack, including a decisive move on Sainz.
He ran much of his race inside the all-important points-paying top 10, reaching as high as seventh on lap 19. Cruelly he was robbed of any reward for his strong performance, as he reported a loss of power owing to a further suspected MGU-K issue within the new power unit. He retired from the race on lap 34.
“We only knew on the lap that I retired that there was any sign of a problem, as I lost power,” he said. “It's a similar issue to yesterday, and it's a shame because we changed the engine overnight for a brand new one today. To have another problem in a race which was going very well is obviously frustrating. Hopefully it will be better in Singapore.”
“It's pretty difficult to draw positives from a weekend like this. From my side, it had actually been a really positive weekend in terms of my driving and the performance I've put in – it's been very strong. The last few races have been very strong for me, in fact.”
“It's just such a shame to finish with another retirement, and not have any reward for all of that. And we've had another issue today, but we have to move on. I guess it's possible I'll have another grid drop in Singapore, although we don't yet know exactly what the issue was today, despite it looking like a similar problem. We'll have to wait and see.”
