Power unit: How many power unit components do drivers still have for the remainder of the season?
With the three-week summer break slowly drawing to its end, F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo analyses how many power unit components drivers still have for the remainder of the season.
For the 12th year running, the 2025 F1 cars are powered by V6 hybrid turbo power units with 1.6-litre engines. This season represents the last year the current engine configuration appears before being replaced by a new power unit formula in 2026.
Current F1 power units feature seven elements: the internal combustion engine (ICE), motor generator unit-heat (MGU-H), motor generator unit-kinetic (MGU-K), turbocharger, energy store (ES), control electronics (CE) and exhaust.
Over the course of the 2025 season, a driver may use no more than four ICEs, MGU-Hs, MGU-Ks and turbochargers, two energy stores and control electronics, and eight of each of the four elements that make up a set of exhaust systems (comprising primaries left-hand side, primaries right-hand side, secondary LHS and secondary RHS).
Disregarding the exhaust system which has rarely forced drivers into a grid drop penalty, the majority of the field has already exploited its entire allocation.
Oscar Piastri, Lando Norris, Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton, Yuki Tsunoda, George Russell, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Lando Stroll, Fernando Alonso, Franco Colapinto, Ollie Bearman, Liam Lawson and Carlos Sainz have already exploited all the components of their allocation as far as the internal combustion engine, the MGU-H, MGU-K, turbocharger, energy store and control electronics are concerned.
In fact, Bearman still has one more fresh energy store to use in the remaining ten races.
Seven drivers have already received grid penalty for exceeding their allocation, including Hamilton, Antonelli, Alonso, Colapinto, Lawson, who have used more than four ICE, TC and MGU-H components so far in 2025.
In the case of Hamilton, Antonelli and Alonso, the additional components were added to their pool at the Belgian Grand Prix as Ferrari, Mercedes and Aston Martin elected to carry out a tactical change after the British, Italian and Spanish driver suffered a dismal qualifying result.
Interestingly, there are drivers who still have fresh elements to use in the remainder of the season.
Max Verstappen, Gasly, Isack Hadjar, Alexander Albon, Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto still have new components – including ICE, turbocharger, MGU-H and MGU-K – to add to their pool, which might yield some advantage in the final leg of the season when several drivers might serve a penalty for exceeding their allocations.
