Red Bull expecting more engine penalties

The Milton Keynes-based team has endured its fair share of frustrations with Renault this season, as the French car manufacturer has battled with reliability throughout the campaign.

Red Bull took a tactical change in Monza last weekend, to ensure no risk of problems in Singapore, but it reckons it will not have enough mileage left to get through the campaign without more new components being needed.

Team boss Christian Horner said: "We are for sure going to incur a further penalty. I hope we have the choice strategically where we take that penalty, but it is not likely we will get to the end of the year without incurring another penalty."

Reliability response

Although the prospect of further grid penalties is not ideal for Red Bull, Horner has praised the way in which Renault has responded to its recent run of reliability problems.

After Max Verstappen's retirement from the Belgian GP, Renault has put counter measures in place for issues it has suffered, has upped its push for new parts for customer teams, and will assign more personnel to Red Bull from the next race in Singapore.

When asked about the job Renault had done in recent weeks, Horner said: "They have certainly responded, which is encouraging.

"But the problem is, they were new engines in Monza, so if we would have had an issue with the first engine in its cycle it would have been fairly catastrophic.

"The encouraging thing is that they seem to be taking it seriously. They are not putting their head in the sand and hopefully that will follow an upward trend between now and the end of the year."