Max Verstappen complained throughout Friday practice ahead of Sunday’s Mexican Grand Prix about a noise emanating from his engine, and Red Bull has finally taken action. Max Verstappen may have lost an engine for the season after receiving complaints about “a noise” coming from it.
The Dutchman was dissatisfied with his power unit during the opening practice session of the Mexican Grand Prix weekend. Red Bull stuck with it for FP2 later in the day, but he reported hearing a noise that bothered him.
The team stated ahead of Saturday’s third and final practice session that the engine in question had been replaced. The device installed is one that was previously in his pool, therefore no penalty will be imposed this weekend.
However, if the engine in his pool cannot be saved, he may be forced to take one in one of the season’s last races. Verstappen had claimed that the engine was producing “no power” and that he could hear “a strange noise.”
To accommodate Verstappen’s new power unit, Red Bull employed one of the two ‘jokers’ F1 teams each season, which allowed them to breach curfew. That meant that some employees may stay at the circuit overnight to complete the task.
The Dutchman hopes that the engine change would help him settle in at a track where Red Bull has performed well in recent years. He has won five of the last six Formula One races contested at the high-altitude Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez since 2017.
Verstappen has not won a Grand Prix since June, but he managed to increase his championship advantage over nearest competitor Lando Norris to 57 points in Austin last weekend. Victory in Mexico City on Sunday would leave the British with only four rounds left to close an even greater gap. Norris lost because of a contentious penalty he received for overtaking his title challenger while off the course. While the Brit criticized the judgment and Verstappen’s aggressive defending during their fight, the McLaren racer conceded he lacks the Dutchman’s wheel-to-wheel combat abilities. He stated, “Max is the best in the world in that style of defense and attack, and I am competing against the best in the world.” As a result, I need to be at his level, which I am not quite at. It’s a terrible to say, but it’s probably true. It’s an experience for me.
To get better.
“I’m learning from Max. Nobody can push it to its boundaries and better comprehend what he is capable of. Approximately 99 percent of the time, he is as close to the limit as possible while remaining correct. He meets the standard that every driver should have.”
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