Hartley to start last after engine penalties

Brendon Hartley’s difficult season is set to continue after Honda had to change all six of his engine components on Friday. The New Zealander is the first driver to suffer engine penalties this season.

The engine penalties on Hartley’s Honda powered Toro Rosso come just days after Red Bull announced they were switching to Honda engines for next season.

Hartley was put out of FP2 in the last ten minutes and it turned out to be a pretty big problem.

He has only scored points once in his first full F1 season, with a 10th placed finish at the crazy Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku.

There were rumours that his seat was under threat, although he has claimed to be unfazed by these.

A collision with Lance Stroll put him out of the last race in Canada after qualifying 12th, and he will have another tough race tomorrow in the South of France if he wants to add to his one point so far.

Update - As for the PU issue encountered yesterday in Brendon’s car, we have now sent it back to Japan for further investigation. We have changed all 6 components last night, therefore Brendon will start from the back of the Grid because of the penalties we incurred #FrenchGP pic.twitter.com/gTVhxPdfTK

— Honda Racing F1 (@HondaRacingF1) 23 June 2018