Max Verstappen to start at Sochi from back of the grid after engine change

The top two drivers in the F1 championship standings, Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen had a coming together on September 12, at Monza, in lap 26 of the race, Max was handed a three-place grid penalty after the stewards judged he was to blame for causing a collision with Hamilton. Now, Red Bull and Verstappen have decided to start at the back of the grid as they have taken a raft of new power unit components at Sochi as confirmed during the second practice on Friday.

Verstappen has taken a new internal Honda internal combustion engine, new turbo, MGU-H, MGU-K, energy store, control electronics, and exhaust this weekend, with grid penalties set to be handed down to him as he has exceeded his season allocation of every one of those parts except for the exhaust. It is being considered a good move because he already had a grid penalty in place.

During the practice runs, Verstappen finished third in FP1 followed by P6 in FP2, and then it was announced that he would take a new power unit for the second session on Friday afternoon. When asked about the changes to his power unit were because of the results during practice, Verstappen told Formula1.com:

“Not only the results. I said before that we’ll take everything into account, also with the weather for tomorrow. So we thought it would be best to take it here.”

Can Max make his way from the back?

Verstappen has previously made his way from the back, at the 2018 Russian Grand Prix he started 19th and ended up finishing fifth but despite that Max is not sure if the same could happen on Sunday because the according to him the gap in the middle of the field is no longer as big as it was back in 2018.

“Of course, in 2018, the gaps to the midfield were a bit bigger,” he explained. “Naturally I think it will be a bit more difficult to come through but we have to take the penalty anyway. If we wouldn’t have taken it here we would have taken it somewhere else. We think now we’ll decide to do it here and try to make the best of it in the race."

(Image: AP)