Verstappen set for F1 engine grid penalty as Honda inspection nears conclusion

Max Verstappen is bracing himself for potentially bad news, with Honda increasingly likely to confirm he has lost one of his Formula 1 power units.

An early demise of the nearly new engine that was removed from his car in Canada, and is currently being inspected at Honda’s headquarters at Sakura in Japan, would open the door for Verstappen to need to soon add an extra power unit to his pool.

And, with him already having used up his fourth and final internal combustion engine of the season at last weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, taking another one would trigger an automatic 10-place grid penalty.

Such a drop could prove significant with the Red Bull driver being locked in an increasingly tight fight with McLaren for race victories.

Montreal failure

The situation Verstappen finds himself in was triggered in Montreal earlier this month when the Dutchman was forced to stop early in the second practice because of a suspected problem with his energy recovery system.

While those issues appeared to be electrical, there were concerns that they could have caused wider damage to the rest of the power unit – especially the internal combustion engine element.

The one run in Canada was a new installation (Verstappen’s third of the year) and had been introduced that morning.

The ERS problem prompted Honda to remove that engine from his car and fly it direct to Japan, where it is now undergoing analysis to work out if it can be saved and put back into the pool or if it is completely dead.

The latter situation, which would mean Verstappen losing one quarter of his allocation for the year, is potentially why he said in Canada he was worried about consequences further down the road.

“I think it’s 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,” he said.

But with it now being more than two weeks since the Canada unit has been in Japan, and without any positive news so far, it is looking increasingly likely that the internal combustion engine cannot be rescued.

Had no problems shown up in early running, then it would almost certainly have been given a sign-off by now and returned to Red Bull.

With Red Bull losing the Canada engine as those inspections continue, it was forced to introduce its fourth PU at last weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix – just to give itself…