Red Bull has decided to change the power unit on Max Verstappen’s RB20 following issues throughout Friday’s practice running for the Mexico City Grand Prix. He is not required to take a grid penalty for the Grand Prix on Sunday.
In the opening practice session, Verstappen encountered two issues. The first being damage to his floor after running over debris, which caused a brief red flag period. He was able to do some laps around the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, but had trouble with his engine.
The power unit issues remained in FP2, despite Red Bull being confident enough to have fixed the issue between first and second practice. Verstappen was able to run only four laps in the extended 90-minute session. Valuable time on the 2025 test tyres was very limited due to the problems.
“From the engine side we are checking, I don’t know exactly what it is,” Verstappen said after the second practice. “But yeah, from my side [it was] a pretty much useless day. I did like four or five laps, and that’s not much to read into.
“It’ll be alright [without a penalty]. I never really had a good run. I did four or five laps in total, and that’s even with some long run laps in it. So a day to forget.”
Ahead of third practice and qualifying on Saturday, Red Bull changed Verstappen’s power unit. The issue occurred to be a result of an intake air circuit leakage. This issue was not able to be resolved on Friday.
The new power unit is another one from Verstappen’s PU pool. Therefore, the Dutchman is not required to take a grid penalty in the race on Sunday. A grid drop would have meant a setback in the championship fight against McLaren’s Lando Norris, who is 57 points behind in the drivers’ standings.
