Max Verstappen still has another power unit-related grid penalty to come, Christijan Albers believes, as he picked out the best race to take it at.
Each driver is allowed four internal combustion engines across a Formula 1 campaign, but Drivers’ Championship leader Verstappen is already at five, having taken his fifth of that component at the Belgian Grand Prix and picking up an automatic 10-place grid penalty.
Max Verstappen to take Brazilian GP grid drop?
However, former F1 driver Albers does not expect Verstappen to navigate the final six rounds of the F1 2024 campaign without taking another engine, which would mean a five-place grid drop.
And with McLaren’s Lando Norris now posing a serious threat to Verstappen and his quest for a fourth consecutive Drivers’ title, Albers is convinced that the Brazilian Grand Prix – Round 21 of 24 – is the ideal venue to take that grid penalty blow for Verstappen.
“That could be a hit,” Albers told De Telegraaf. “Then I would get it in Brazil, one hundred percent.
“You’re not going to do that in Austin. I would get it in Brazil, that’s better with that long straight, and that’s better with the DRS. They have that in Austin too, but that’s a close call.”
While initially in F1 2024 Verstappen appeared to be well on his way to his fourth consecutive Drivers’ title, Norris has reduced Verstappen’s lead to 52 points and delivered a fresh statement performance in Singapore, winning by 20 seconds from runner-up Verstappen.
That made it eight races without a win for Verstappen, and while he admits Red Bull took a “wrong direction” with their RB20, he backs his team to get back on the right path.
“Let’s say we took the wrong direction with the car,” Verstappen told Sky Italia. “Now we are trying to correct it but it takes time, you can’t just flip a switch and fix everything.
“We are working on it, then we also had bad luck in some episodes in the last races, some unfortunate decisions that compromised the final result. But I know we can do better.
“Obviously I don’t expect it to go like last year, where we dominated the whole season, but I feel confident that we can get back to fighting for the win very soon.”
McLaren has already usurped Red Bull at the head of the F1 2024 Constructors’ standings, establishing a lead of 41 points.
