The 2025 Formula 1 World Championship has now completed 13 out of the 24 scheduled Grands Prix in what is one of the longest seasons in the sport’s history. Throughout the season, the Formula 1 teams are not permitted to freely replace or upgrade Power Unit components. Instead, they must comply with the limitations outlined by the technical regulations. Should a team exceed the permitted quota of parts, grid penalties are automatically applied.
Due to reliability issues, accidents, or even strategic management of component rotation—often intended to gain a performance advantage with fresh elements—most teams on the grid have already reached or are dangerously close to reaching the maximum allowed number of Power Unit elements by this point in the season.
In the second half of the championship, grid penalties are expected to become a key strategic consideration. Teams will likely begin to make calculated decisions about in which races to accept a starting grid drop in exchange for installing a new and more powerful engine. This is exactly what Ferrari, Mercedes, Aston Martin, and Williams already did during the previous round at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium. Taking advantage of poor qualifying results for Lewis Hamilton, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Fernando Alonso, and Carlos Sainz, they opted to change the Power Unit components, which rendered the 10-place grid penalties practically irrelevant. A similar strategy could be repeated at the Hungarian Grand Prix, but given the tight and twisty layout of the Hungaroring—where overtaking is notoriously difficult—teams are expected to be much more conservative, trying to avoid any further penalties by carefully managing their remaining components.
According to Article 28.2 of the Formula 1 sporting regulations, during the 2025 season, each driver is allowed a maximum allocation of:
4 Internal Combustion Engines (ICE)
4 Turbochargers (TC)
4 Motor Generator Units – Heat (MGU-H)
4 Motor Generator Units – Kinetic (MGU-K)
2 Energy Stores (ES)
2 Control Electronics units (CE)
8 Exhaust systems (EX)
Here is the updated table showing how many of each component every driver has used so far in the 2025 Formula 1 season:
| N. | Team | Driver | ICE | TC | MGU-H | MGU-K | ES | CE | EX |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 81 | McLaren Mercedes | Oscar Piastri | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| 04 | McLaren Mercedes | Lando Norris | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| 16 | Ferrari | Charles Leclerc | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 5 |
| 44 | Ferrari | Lewis Hamilton | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 6 |
| 01 | Red Bull Honda RBPT | Max Verstappen | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 5 |
| 22 | Red Bull Honda RBPT | Yuki Tsunoda | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 6 |
| 63 | Mercedes | George Russell | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| 12 | Mercedes | Andrea Kimi Antonelli | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| 18 | Aston Martin Mercedes | Lance Stroll | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| 14 | Aston Martin Mercedes | Fernando Alonso | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| 10 | Alpine Renault | Pierre Gasly | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 |
| 07 | Alpine Renault | Franco Colapinto | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 6 |
| 31 | Haas Ferrari | Esteban Ocon | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| 87 | Haas Ferrari | Oliver Bearman | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
| 06 | RBR Honda RBPT | Isack Hadjar | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 5 |
| 30 | RBR Honda RBPT | Liam Lawson | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 5 |
| 23 | Williams Mercedes | Alexander Albon | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| 55 | Williams Mercedes | Carlos Sainz | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| 27 | Kick Sauber Ferrari | Gabriel Bortoleto | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 05 | Kick Sauber Ferrari | Nico Hülkenberg | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
Component usage converging among top teams
Among the leading teams, only Max Verstappen still has a small buffer in terms of component usage. All other front-runners have already reached the limit of four units for the ICE, TC, MGU-H, and MGU-K components, and have also used both of their allocated CE units. From this point forward, any new component installation will trigger grid penalties: five places if the driver has already taken a first penalty, or ten places if it is their first infraction.
The situation is slightly more relaxed for Pierre Gasly, Alexander Albon, Esteban Ocon, Isack Hadjar, Nico Hülkenberg, and Gabriel Bortoleto. These drivers remain at or below three used components across most Power Unit elements, although a few are approaching the limit on control electronics and battery storage systems.
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