McLaren raise questions over Max Verstappen engine change

Max Verstappen's performance in the São Paulo Grand Prix, climbing from the pit lane to third place, has prompted discussion about Red Bull's approach to taking power unit-related penalties.

Following a difficult qualifying session which saw both Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda eliminated in Q1, Red Bull opted to fit a new power unit to the four-time world champion's car. As a result, Verstappen started from the pit lane.

The strategy worked well. Verstappen managed to finish in third, despite also suffering a puncture in the opening laps.

Red Bull's decision to make an engine change has drawn comments from other teams, including McLaren's Andrea Stella, who questioned the reasoning behind Red Bull's engine change. 

As outlined by Stella, an engine change for performance-based reasons is something McLaren would not do, as for them it would have a major impact on the $135 million cost cap.

"In terms of performance, I think introducing a new engine nowadays, I don't know how this works for Honda, but in general, these engines, they don't exhibit much degradation with mileage. 

"So that's why, in general, you wouldn't change an engine and accept a penalty or a loss of positions, because normally, the performance you get back doesn't really compensate for the positional losses. 

"Like I say, I'm not sure how the power degradation works for Honda. To be honest, this kind of power unit changes, they also challenge the regulations, because I will be interested in understanding if the cost of this engine now goes in the cost cap or not. 

"If the engine was changed for performance reasons it should go in the cost cap. So let's see if this is the case or not. Not that I will be able to see, it's all on the Red Bull side, but this is also one reason why we wouldn't do it, because it would end up in the cost cap."