Red Bull hit back at McLaren’s concerns over Max Verstappen’s Brazil engine change

Red Bull insist their decision to fit Max Verstappen with a new engine for the São Paulo Grand Prix was “legitimate” after McLaren questioned the move.

Red Bull opted to start Verstappen from the pit lane in Brazil after a shock early Q1 exit.

Not only did it allow them to make crucial setup tweaks, but they also gave Verstappen a fresh engine.

That decision prompted questions from McLaren, who queried whether the change would impact Red Bull’s cost cap spending.

Teams have been reluctant to take fresh power units this year — over their allocated amount — due to the cost cap and the potential grid penalties.

After the race at Interlagos, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said: “To be honest, these kind of power unit changes, they challenge the regulations.

“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, not that I will be able to see, as 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.”

A fresh engine brings a small performance benefit, potentially aiding Verstappen in the last three races as he looks to remain in title contention.

Verstappen is 49 points behind Lando Norris with three rounds remaining.

The four-time world champion admitted during the FIA press conference ahead of the weekend that he would need luck to win a fifth drivers' crown.

Red Bull have their say

Speaking to reporters in Las Vegas ahead of FP1, chief engineer Paul Monaghan said he wasn’t surprised a rival team raised questions.

However, he was adamant that Red Bull’s decision is “defendable”.

“I’m not surprised someone has to sort of roll a hand grenade into the situation. Fine. If the situation were around the other way, we could do the same,” he said.

“What we did is defendable, it’s legitimate and if you go back through, even this generation of cars from say ‘22 to this year, people have made engine changes. There’s nothing unusual in it.”

He added: “I don’t think it’s a grey area. As far as I’m concerned, we justified to ourselves what we were going to do. If we’re questioned on it, fine, we will justify it.”

When asked if it would impact Red Bull's cost cap for the year, he replied: "I'm not going to answer that question because I'm not a finance regulation expert. I know roughly what we need to do and what's in and what's out.

"But I believe our actions we can defend, and there will not be a penalty against us at the end of the year for it.

"That would be an answer with my knowledge on it. I don't want to speculate as to how we're treating it within the financial regulations, because I may get it wrong and then I look even more of an idiot than normal. So I'll leave it at that, if I may.”