Verstappen ‘hasn’t heard’ if he’ll have grid penalty, Marko says he will · RaceFans

Max Verstappen claimed he is unaware whether he will have to take a grid penalty for a power unit change at this weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix.

However Red Bull motorsport consultant Helmut Marko said yesterday Red Bull will have to change his engine. This will result in a five-place grid penalty for the championship leader.

“I haven’t heard anything yet,” said Verstappen when asked if he would have a grid penalty this weekend. “It’s not discussed, but I know that I will have to take one at some point. So we’ll see.”

Marko said Red Bull “can’t avoid an engine change in Brazil, along with the associated grid penalty,” in his column for Speed Week.

The grid penalty will be a further blow for Red Bull who have been increasingly out-paced by rivals Ferrari and McLaren in recent races. Verstappen qualified on the front row last weekend in Mexico and took the lead at the start but quickly came under attack. He finished sixth after collecting two penalties for incidents with championship rival Lando Norris

Asked whether he expects the team will struggle more in the races this weekend, Verstappen said: “This has been a little bit the case for most of the season lately.

“It’s a bit difficult to explain why that is. I think it’s just entirely up to us, but we’ll see, we’ll try to be as competitive as we can be and every track is a bit different. Also here, there’s new Tarmac, so again there’s a few question marks.”

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The engine problems Verstappen encountered on Friday last weekend severely limited the amount of running he was able to do. He said that also compromised his car’s performance.

“In general we probably lack a little bit of pace, but for sure it could have been a lot better. But unfortunately we didn’t get to really understand that in the long runs.

“It’s always very painful, especially when it’s a very tight battle with some teams and you’re a bit on the back foot, you need to really maximise everything that you can and we couldn’t do that in Mexico.”