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 Driversâ 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 McLarenâs Lando Norris now posing a serious threat to Verstappen and his quest for a fourth consecutive Driversâ title, Albers is convinced that the Brazilian Grand Prix â Round 21 of 24 â is the ideal venue to take that grid penalty blow for Verstappen.
âThat could be a hit,â Albers told De Telegraaf. âThen I would get it in Brazil, one hundred percent.
âYouâre not going to do that in Austin. I would get it in Brazil, thatâs better with that long straight, and thatâs better with the DRS. They have that in Austin too, but thatâs a close call.â
While initially in F1 2024 Verstappen appeared to be well on his way to his fourth consecutive Driversâ title, Norris has reduced Verstappenâs lead to 52 points and delivered a fresh statement performance in Singapore, winning by 20 seconds from runner-up Verstappen.
That was the eighth race in a row without a victory for Verstappen and while the driver complained about the car designerâs decision to take a â wrong directionâ with the Red Bull RB20 the driver backed the team to get things right.
âLetâs say we took the wrong direction with the car,â Verstappen said to Sky Italia. âNow we are trying to correct it but it takes time, you canât just flip a switch and fix everything.
âWe are working on it, then in the last races we had also bad luck, some wrong choices that affected the final outcome. But I know we can do better.
âOf course I do not think it is possible to start winning every race like we did all year last year, but I believe that we can fight for another win very soon.â
McLaren has already overtook Red Bull in the F1 2024 Constructorsâ table, while having 41 points advantage.