Aston Martin driver Lance Stroll is set to complete the Hungarian Grand Prix with a fresh gearbox, but no other driver has elected to take any fresh gearbox or power unit components.

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.

For this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix, Aston Martin driver Lance Stroll has elected to take a fresh gearbox. It is his third new gearbox internals and casing for the 2024 F1 season, which leaves him with two further new units to use in the remainder of the season.

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).

With the British Grand Prix having marked the midpoint of the 24-race 2024 F1 season, many teams felt that it was the right time to install new power units into their cars.

A total of 14 drivers raced with a new ICE two weeks ago: George Russell, Sergio Perez, Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, Lance Stroll, Fernando Alonso, Pierre Gasly, Logan Sargeant, Daniel Ricciardo, Yuki Tsunoda, Valtteri Bottas, Zhou Guanyu, Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg.

It is therefore no wonder that no driver has decided to take a fresh power unit component for the Hungaroring. With the Mogyoród F1 track being considered as a track where power units are not exposed to great stress, teams often elect to use an engine that has already completed several races. It is also a common practice that drivers complete the Hungarian Grand Prix that they also used at the Monaco race.