Formula 1 teams have agreed to increase the engine allocation from four to five this season – the same number as last season – because of worse than expected reliability.
It was thought that engine reliability would improve substantially over the winter period, but that hasn’t been the case with Daniel Ricciardo and Kevin Magnussen (standing in for Fernando Alonso) already enduring one failure each in Australia.
That would have left them with just three units for the remaining 18 races. Had they exceeded that allocation, then a 10-place grid penalty would apply, with five more places for each additional component used.
However during a meeting on Friday in Malaysia, all team principals agreed that adding a fifth unit would be beneficial.
The change also allows engine manufacturers more flexibility to use and introduce their remaining development tokens – which can only be used when an entirely new unit is introduced.
The change must now be ratified by the FIA before it is included in the amended sporting regulations.
