Max Verstappen engine theory addressed after Red Bull curfew break at Spa

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner put a stop to speculation that Max Verstappen’s old engine has been re-fitted to his RB20 car.

Verstappen takes a 10-place grid drop at the Belgian Grand Prix after Red Bull introduced a fifth internal combustion engine for his season, breaching the limit of four and triggering the penalty.

Red Bull did not put old engine back into Max Verstappen’s RB20

But the FIA confirmed that on Friday night, Red Bull used one of their two permitted curfew breaks for the F1 2024 season, with Sky F1 pit-lane reporter Ted Kravitz saying he had heard that the back was off Verstappen’s car as he addressed a “rumour” around whether Red Bull were instead going to save that new engine for Zandvoort and Monza after the summer break?

“Would they want the life of a fresher engine for Zandvoort, a race Max really wants to win, or Monza?” Kravitz pondered.

“Would they rather use engine number five for those races, and would they rather use engine number four for the rest of this event?”

However, Horner made it clear that Red Bull had not swapped the new engine out of Verstappen’s RB20.

“No, we’ve left it in,” Horner confirmed to Sky F1.

“So we’ve introduced the engine here because we had to introduce another engine over the next three or four races. So we felt Spa, with the overtaking, we’ve historically done it here. The overtaking delta here is less than other venues.

“So of course, it relies on us needing to qualify as well as we can today, but you can overtake, so we decided let’s get the engine in the pool, so it gives us a bit more comfort as we go into the season after the summer break.”

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The 2024 Belgian Grand Prix marks the third time in a row that Verstappen has taken an engine penalty here, but he still went on to win the last two years, from P14 on the grid in 2022 and P6 last season.

But with Red Bull facing much sterner competition from the likes of McLaren and Mercedes this time around, Horner said a Verstappen podium, rather than a win, is the target.

Put to him that Verstappen has carved through the field at Spa in recent years, Horner replied: “I think that’ll be a bit harder this year though.

“I think that with the conversions we’ve seen in the pace, you haven’t got big deltas between the cars.

“So to win the race from wherever he qualifies, will be very, very hard and we’re more aiming at a podium than a win to be honest.”

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