Verstappen set to start Belgian Grand Prix from the back of the grid

Championship runaway leader Max Verstappen might face a grid drop penalty for this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix after his reliability woes earlier this season.

For the 11th year running, the 2024 F1 cars are powered by V6 hybrid turbo power units with 1.6-litre engines. This season represents the penultimate year the current engine configuration appears before being replaced by a new power unit formula in 2026.

Current F1 power units feature seven elements: the internal combustion engine (ICE), motor generator unit-heat (MGU-H), motor generator unit-kinetic (MGU-K), turbocharger, energy store (ES), control electronics (CE) and exhaust.

Over the course of the 2024 season, a driver may use no more than four ICEs, MGU-Hs, MGU-Ks and turbochargers, two energy stores and control electronics, and eight of each of the four elements that make up a set of exhaust systems (comprising primaries left-hand side, primaries right-hand side, secondary LHS and secondary RHS).

Championship runaway leader Max Verstappen is on the brink of a penalty for excessive use of power unit elements, since he has already used all four permitted engines in the first ten races of the season.

In the second practice session at the Canadian Grand Prix, the Dutchman encountered a problem with the electrical part of the power unit, which was being inspected at Honda’s Japanese headquarters in Sakura.

At the forthcoming Spanish Grand Prix, the three-time world champion took the fourth and final permitted engine while the fifth engine will also mean a ten-place penalty, as well as any first excessive use of any element.

It has now emerged that Red Bull will equip Verstappen’s car with a fresh internal combustion engine at this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix which will be his fifth ICE for the season.

Although Red Bull have lost its enormous competitive advantage in recent weeks with McLaren having closed in on the reigning world champion team, the Milton Keynes-team might base its decision on the last two years when Verstappen easily overcame grid penalties to win the Belgian Grand Prix.

Last year, the Dutchman recovered from a five-place gearbox penalty to claim his eighth successive victory at Spa. Two years ago, he made light work of his grid penalties to win the 2022 Belgian Grand Prix from P14 on the grid in a Red Bull one-two.