As the title battle moves towards the closing stages, the risk of engine penalties looms for all three of the contenders.

We have reached the point of the season where teams’ best-laid plans come a cropper as they exceed their allocation for parts of the power unit and as a result, pick up grid penalties.

How engine penalties could play a role in F1 title fight

At the start of each season, the FIA informs the teams how many of each part of the power unit they are allowed to use over the course of the season and any car that goes above that will be hit with a penalty.

The FIA rules for 2025 state a single driver can use:

4x Internal Combustion Engine (ICE)
4x Motor Generator Unit-Heat (MGU-H)
4x Motor Generator Unit-Kinetic (MGU-K)
4x Turbocharger (TC)
2x Energy Store (ES)
2x Control Electronics (CE)
8x Exhaust (EX)

And with 83% of the season completed, we have arrived at the point of the year where a lot of drivers may face grid penalties for exceeding their allocation.

On the first instance, it is an automatic 10-place grid penalty with every further breach being five places dropped. The penalties are served communally and if a driver hits 15 in a single race, they will automatically start at the back of the grid.

So far this year Lewis Hamilton, Yuki Tsunoda, Fernando Alonso, Pierre Gasly, Franco Colapinto, Oliver Bearman, Isaac Hadjar and Liam Lawson have all served penalties but the three title contenders could be in trouble.

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Why Max Verstappen is most at risk of potential grid penalty

Of the three contenders, it is Verstappen who has the most cause for concern as he has been getting through exhausts far more frequently than his McLaren rivals.

Drivers are given an allocation of eight per season and Verstappen has already reached seven with four races and a sprint to go. Meanwhile, Piastri and Norris are both on three. This means that Verstappen can realistically only afford one more destroyed or failed exhuast before he will be hit with a 10-place grid drop.

Far more pressing though is a reality that faces all three drivers as each are on the limit for the ICE, TC, MGU-H, MGU-K, ES and CE.

This means that one crash will almost certainly mean a grid penalty at the next race for the drivers, unless teams feel they can swap in an old engine and not lose too much performance.

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