Verstappen facing early engine change grid penalty

Max verstappen could be facing a ten place grid penalty within the next few weeks, with the new engine that had to be replaced in Montreal looking increasingly unlikely to be used again.

Drivers get four power units to last the entire season, and Verstappen used his final permitted unit last weekend in Spain leaving him no spares for the remaining 14 races of the season.

The cause of the current problem was the failure of the brand new engine he was using in Canada. Verstappen was forced to stop early in second practice because of a suspected problem with his ERS (Energy Recovery System).

There were concerns that this could have caused wider damage to the rest of the power unit, in particular the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) itself, so the unit was removed and flown to Sakura in Japan for analysis by Honda.

"The Canada engine has been returned for inspection to Japan," Red Bull team principal Christian Horner confirmed at the weekend.

• Read also: Marko warns Red Bull can't keep relying on Verstappen

At the time, Verstappen said that it was "more important to just figure out what actually happened and what kind of implications that will have for this weekend or the rest of the year", suggesting a concern over future penalties.

Motorsport.com has reported that no news on the analysis is probably not good news in this case, as it might therefore not be possible to return it to the pool of components available for Verstappen to use.

With over two weeks having passed since Canada, the unit would normally have been checked and returned to Red Bull by now unless problems had been detected in preliminary testing.

The report concluded that the analysis "does not look like bringing good news" to Verstappen and his team. If Verstappen were to take a replacement unit in 2024, he will incur a ten place grid penalty for the next race.

"We'd have to see how it plays out over the coming races," Horner said. "But I think it's inevitable that we'll take the next engine at some point.

Red Bull has coped with engine penalties in the past and still bounced back to win the race, but that was last season when they enjoyed a total dominance in the championships.

That's no longer the case in 2024, with Ferrari and McLaren much closer in term sof performance and Mercedes also back in the mix to a degree meaning that a ten place grid drop could seriously impact Verstappen's championship.

It will be up to the team to decide which circuit is best suited to giving Verstappen a chance of bouncing back. They're unlikely to pull the pin and do that this weekend at their home circuit, the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg

"We always feel really welcome and enjoy coming back to Austria, being a home race for Red Bull," commented Verstappen in the team's official preview for the Austrian Grand Prix.

"It's always good to see the Orange Army fans here and really feel that support from the grandstand.

"It is another Sprint race this weekend, which always ends up being a hectic and busy weekend for us. It is really important to nail the set up of the car straight away and analyse how best we build and improve on our previous races

"The track lends itself to a lot of overtaking so I’m sure it will be an exciting race. The team performed well here last year so hopefully we can do the fans proud this weekend and bring it home with another win."

Verstappen currently leads the drivers championship by 69 points from McLaren's Lando Norris, and Red Bull itself is 60 points ahead of Ferrari in the constructors standings.

However those margins are a lot tighter than they were at the same stage in last year's campaign. Having already suffered his first DNF in two years with a brake fire in Australia, Verstappen could have done without this extra headache.

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