Engine trouble for Red Bull racer Max Verstappen in practice before the Mexico race has had a lasting impact and means a new engine – and a penalty – will be required at InterlagosMax Verstappen needs a new engine and so will be punished for using one (Image: Getty Images)

Max Verstappen will have no choice but to take an engine penalty for the Brazilian Grand Prix, Helmut Marko has said.

Red Bull were forced into changing the power unit in Verstappen’s car over the course of the Mexico race weekend. The Dutchman reported hearing “a weird noise” coming from the engine during Friday practice and also complained one at least one occasion that he was losing power.

Long-serving adviser Marko says the team has yet to finish its analysis of the affected power unit. And, because the one they replaced it with in Mexico has plenty of mileage on it already, the Austrian has now confirmed that another must be added to Verstappen’s pool – incurring a penalty.

Each car can only use a certain number of each engine part per season. Any additional parts that go over the limit are met with a penalty – 10 places on the grid for the first breach of the year, and five places for any further ones after that.

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Verstappen has already taken one 10-place grid penalty for using an extra engine this year, at the Belgian Grand Prix. So he is set to start this Sunday’s Interlagos race five places lower than the qualifying position he achieves in qualifying on Saturday.

“Max Verstappen’s Mexico weekend started badly on Friday with a leak in the engine’s intake tract. As a result, Max was unable to drive in either the first or second practice sessions,” Marko wrote in his Speedweek column. “The lack of driving time is partly the reason why we were not competitive in the race, especially with the hard tyres.

“The pace was also not right because the engine problem mentioned above meant that a different engine had to be installed, which had reached the end of its life and was actually no longer planned for racing. That was one of the reasons why we were one of the slowest cars on the straights.

Helmut Marko has confirmed Verstappen’s fate ( Image: Getty Images)

“When a Formula 1 engine has reached a certain number of kilometres, the loss of performance is clearly noticeable. We are currently investigating whether we could use the engine with the leak again. But here too, the number of kilometres means that it is no longer planned to be used. All of this means that we cannot avoid changing the engine in Brazil, with the corresponding penalty.”

After the Mexico race, and before he could confirm for sure that Verstappen will need a new power unit in Sao Paulo, Marko told Austrian television: “The penalty would be five places. That would not be so severe in Brazil, for example, where you can overtake relatively easily.”

Regardless, it is a boost to Lando Norris who need to make big gains on Verstappen over this Sprint weekend to keep his title hopes alive. He is 47 points behind the Dutchman, having narrowed that gap by 10 in Mexico after Verstappen was given a 20-second time penalty for his overly-aggressive defending against the McLaren man early in the race.