Max Verstappen will use his old power unit for the Canadian Grand Prix after suffering an MGU-K failure during the second practice session at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

The reigning world champion reported that he was smelling smoke in the cockpit during a rainy FP2 session, returning to the pit lane and climbing out of his cockpit with half of the allotted time still remaining.

Verstappen was one of many drivers to take a new power unit from their allocation for this weekend given the advantage that engine performance gives in Montreal. However, after this setback, he now reverts back to a used component.

After climbing out of the cockpit, Verstappen’s fears immediately turned towards the future ramifications of a power unit change. Each driver only gets an allocation of four MGU-K units, and going beyond this results in a grid penalty.

“Unfortunately [in] FP2 not many laps for me,” Verstappen explained. “There was a suspected electrical issue, so they told me to box, and they’re investigating now.

“It’s not ideal. I mean, I would have liked to drive more laps and some other people had a few more laps in the dry, a few more laps now in the wet. So, it’s definitely not how I would have liked to get on in FP2.

“But I think it’s more important to just figure out what actually happened and what kind of implications that will have for this weekend or the rest of the year.”

The component failure also had another negative impact on Verstappen’s day. The Dutchman’s session was cut short, costing Red Bull vital testing time as they look to get on top of their issues over bumpy surfaces and kerbs.

Helmut Marko backed up this concern, noting: “Of course, it’s annoying because the first session was already mostly wet and without conclusions, but for the set-up let’s hope that [Saturday] is dry during that final practice session. If we get one complete dry session then it doesn’t hurt so much.”