Max Verstappen may serve a grid penalty for the replacement of his fifth power unit next weekend in Brazil at the 4.309-kilometre Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace in Sao Paulo. Despite finishing sixth in the Mexican Grand Prix, Red Bull is not overly alarmed.
Given the evident technical crisis of the RB20 compared to McLaren and Ferrari, the Dutch driver still has a significant safety cushion in the standings against Lando Norris, who is now 47 points behind.
The Mexican weekend started poorly for the three-time Formula 1 world champion, with issues in his Honda power unit that prevented him from completing the planned work program.
However, as these are older engines, Max Verstappen managed to participate in both qualifying and the race without significant setbacks, but with four GPs remaining, the Dutch driver is aware that he will most likely have to serve another grid penalty.
According to Helmut Marko, the new engine could be fitted next weekend in Brazil at the Interlagos circuit.
“We were not close at all to the two leading teams, and I believe part of the problem is that we could not drive on Friday due to engine issues,” the Austrian stated after the race. We need to do something, that’s clear. We will also have to change the engine because we were really slow on the straight. This engine that was in the car shouldn’t have been in the car, so it will likely happen in Brazil. The engine we had was no longer intended for the race. The older an engine gets, the more its performance decreases,” he added to ORF microphones.
“The penalty would be five positions. It wouldn’t be that severe in Brazil, for example, where overtaking can be relatively easy. But we saw that we were missing 3 to 8 km/h on the straights.” – the Red Bull advisor concluded.
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