Championship runaway leader Max Verstappen might face engine penalities as early as in summer races after having faced reliability issues in the opening stages of the season. F1Technical's lead journalist Balazs Szabo explains the current situation regarding the power unit allocations.

Power units

For the 11th year running, the 2024 F1 cars are powered by V6 hybrid turbo power units with 1.6-litre engines. This season represents the penultimate 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 2024 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).

Three drivers received a new internal combustion engine for the Spanish Grand Prix. Carlos Sainz was given his third ICE which meant that he still has one more unit to use in the remainder of the season.

However, championship runaway leader Max Verstappen has been forced to take another new internal combustion at Barcelona which was his fourth and last unit for the season. He last received a new ICE in Montreal two weeks ago, but he suffered a reliability issue on Friday which curtailed his running in Free Practice 2.

Although the issue was an electrical gremlin, it has been reported that this brand-new power unit might not return to his pool. If this turns out to be the case, he will definitely need to take additional power units in the second half of the season.

Similarly to Verstappen, Alpine's Pierre Gasly has also taken a new internal combustion engine which suggest that he will also be forced to exceed his allocation.

Verstappen, Sainz and Gasly have also received a new turbocharger, MGU-H, MGU-K and exhaust system.

Sergio Perez, Esteban Ocon and Zhou Guanyu took a fresh energy store which is their second and last unit of their allocation.

The Chinese driver also received a new control electronics while Valtteri Bottas joined the trio of Verstappen, Sainz and Gasly in taking a new exhaust system at Barcelona.

Gearbox units

Drivers are also limited in terms of how many restricted-number components (RNCs) they can use during a season. RNCs are components that make up the gearbox, split between the gearbox case and cassette, and the gearbox driveline, gear change components and auxiliary components.

As with their power units, drivers have a ‘pool’ of four gearboxes that can be swapped around during the season. Only when a driver exceeds their allocation of either of the above gearbox components do they receive a grid penalty.

Eight drivers have taken a new gearbox for the Spanish Grand Prix: Verstappen, Sergio Perez, Sainz, George Russell, Daniel Ricciardo, Bottas, Yuki Tsunoda and Logan Sargeant.