McLaren fitted new engines to both its cars ahead of final practice and qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix in order to increase its pool of fresh power units for future rounds.

In doing so the team has incurred a combined 105-place grid-place penalty between its two cars, but in reality that will just mean Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso will start from the back of the grid this weekend and have two new engines to use over the coming rounds.

The regulations used to state that if the size of the grid penalty exceeded the number of places on the grid behind the driver then further time penalties would be applied in the race, but that was changed ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix. As a result McLaren can access two of its new, upgraded power units this weekend and start from the back of the grid, while not incurring further penalties at future rounds when it moves onto the second of the two power units.

In total Alonso has used eight internal combustion engines, eight turbochargers, eight MGU-Hs and seven MGU-Ks this season, while Button has used eight internal combustion engines nine turbochargers, nine MGU-Hs and eight MGU-Ks.

Ahead of the weekend McLaren spent three development tokens on its internal combustion engine, making Spa the perfect time to take the hit in grid penalties ahead of what the team hopes will be a points-scoring opportunity in two races' time in Singapore.