Silence doesn’t always have gold in its mouth. The Red Bull staff in Barcelona has decided to free up the fourth engine for Max Verstappen, completing the availability that each driver has for the 2024 season. From Sakura, home of the Honda Research Centre, no fresh news has arrived in Milton Keynes and the mouths are closed of the Japanese raise fears that the number 3 RBPT H002 power unit will no longer be recoverable, fueling the alarm that the three-time world champion will also be forced to use a fifth unit to conclude the season, resulting in a penalty that would cost ten positions on the grid of departure.
As you may remember, in the second free practice session of the Canadian GP, Verstappen was asked to return to the pits, while dark gray smoke began to emerge from the bonnet. And, once it arrived in the garage, the Dutchman’s RB20 was isolated by yellow tapes: the driver got out of the cockpit, jumping onto the floor of the garage to avoid any possible dispersion of current, while an acrid smell spread through the air together to smoking.
There was a certain dismay on the faces of the team’s technicians, because the power unit was brand new, assembled on Friday morning at zero kilometres, and the hybrid problem made the Japanese technicians nervous: unit number 3, in fact , was dismantled and immediately sent to Sakura to analyze whether the failure of the MGU-K could also have had repercussions on the internal combustion engine.
The fact that silence has fallen on that power unit raises the thought that it will not return to the season’s rotations, even if there was hope that some elements could have been saved to be sent back to the Red Bull Powertrains headquarters in Milton Keynes .
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo credit: Red Bull Content Pool
The climate of uncertainty advised Red Bull to decide on the fourth unit in Barcelona to guarantee Max Verstappen an availability of components to proceed with the expected rotations scheduled for the next events.
Christian Horner admitted bluntly: “We’ll have to see how the next races go, but I think it’s inevitable that we’ll have to use another engine sooner or later.”
Red Bull is no stranger to managing engine penalties, knowing that it can choose races where the track can facilitate overtaking: before the summer break there will be the Balgio GP at Spa-Francorchamps, a track that suits the change of engine.
After all, Verstappen has always suffered penalties in the last two years: last year he won starting from sixth place on the grid, while in 2022 he won by starting from fourteenth place on the starting grid.
The technical scenario has now changed profoundly: Red Bull no longer has the supremacy of previous years, so a penalty for Verstappen could play in favor of its closest rivals McLaren, first and foremost, and Ferrari if it manages to find the key to its problems…
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