diff --git a/cloud/services/container/nodepools/reconcile.go b/cloud/services/container/nodepools/reconcile.go
index 8216c83fb..3df3a826a 100644
--- a/cloud/services/container/nodepools/reconcile.go
+++ b/cloud/services/container/nodepools/reconcile.go
@@ -355,9 +355,12 @@ func (s *Service) checkDiffAndPrepareUpdateConfig(existingNodePool *containerpb.
 	desiredNodePool := scope.ConvertToSdkNodePool(*s.scope.GCPManagedMachinePool, *s.scope.MachinePool, isRegional, s.scope.GCPManagedControlPlane.Spec.ClusterName)
 
 	// Node version
-	if s.scope.NodePoolVersion() != nil && *s.scope.NodePoolVersion() != infrav1exp.ConvertFromSdkNodeVersion(existingNodePool.Version) {
-		needUpdate = true
-		updateNodePoolRequest.NodeVersion = *s.scope.NodePoolVersion()
+	if s.scope.NodePoolVersion() != nil {
+		desiredNodePoolVersion := infrav1exp.ConvertFromSdkNodeVersion(*s.scope.NodePoolVersion())
+		if desiredNodePoolVersion != infrav1exp.ConvertFromSdkNodeVersion(existingNodePool.Version) {
+			needUpdate = true
+			updateNodePoolRequest.NodeVersion = desiredNodePoolVersion
+		}
 	}
 	// Kubernetes labels
 	if !cmp.Equal(desiredNodePool.Config.GetLabels(), existingNodePool.Config.Labels) {
diff --git a/exp/api/v1beta1/types.go b/exp/api/v1beta1/types.go
index 3e9245da7..19e29c0f6 100644
--- a/exp/api/v1beta1/types.go
+++ b/exp/api/v1beta1/types.go
@@ -110,7 +110,7 @@ func ConvertToSdkAutoscaling(autoscaling *NodePoolAutoScaling) *containerpb.Node
 // ConvertFromSdkNodeVersion converts GCP SDK node version to k8s version.
 func ConvertFromSdkNodeVersion(sdkNodeVersion string) string {
 	// For example, the node version returned from GCP SDK can be 1.27.2-gke.2100, we want to convert it to 1.27.2
-	return strings.Split(sdkNodeVersion, "-")[0]
+	return strings.Replace(strings.Split(sdkNodeVersion, "-")[0], "v", "", 1)
 }
 
 // ConvertToSdkCgroupMode converts GCP SDK node version to k8s version.