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If you're already starting from the back of the grid anyway, why not incur as many penalties as you can? That is the attitude taken by one team and driver at the United States Grand Prix and, as a result, 60 places' worth of grid penalties have been confirmed by the Formula One stewards. They will all be served in Austin on Sunday with several drivers taking grid drops because of new engine parts.
It was confirmed on Friday that three drivers had fitted new power unit components to their cars which had taken them beyond their annual allowance. Each car is only allowed to have a certain number of engine parts fitted to it over the course of a season.
Any new parts then introduced beyond that allocation come with automatic grid penalties. A 10-plage grid drop is the standard punishment for the first time a driver goes over their allowance for a particular component, with each further breach over the rest of the season worth five places every time.
With so many components making up these modern F1 engines, those new parts and their accompanying penalties can soon rack up. Gabriel Bortoleto has learned that in Austin after his Audi team decided to introduce new engine parts across the board, despite it being beyond his limit for the season.
It was already confirmed on Friday that Bortoleto was one of the three drivers who had exceeded their allowance with new engine parts for this event. At that point, Audi had fitted a new energy store, his fourth of the year, and also a fourth control electronics unit. The limit for each of those parts is three per year, and so they both came with 10-place grid penalties.
But why stop there? The regulations make it clear that any accumulative grid penalties worth more than 15 places are converted into an automatic back-of-grid start. At that point, there is no harm in incurring further grid drops.
Audi bosses seem to have come to that same conclusion. Ahead of qualifying, it was confirmed that further new engine parts had been added to Bortoleto's car.
A fifth energy store and control electronics unit were fitted, meaning he now has two new ones in his pool for the season. Because those are now the second breaches of the season for each component, they are worth five places on the grid each.
In addition, Bortoleto has taken a fifth internal combustion engines, a fifth turbocharger, a fifth exhaust set, a fourth kinetic energy generator unit and a seventh power unit ancillary component of the year. All of those are first offences in 2026, and so are worth 10 places each.
In total, Bortoleto's new parts for the race have racked up 60 places' worth of grid drops, prompting Sky Sports F1 commentator David Croft to quip live on air that the Brazilian driver would be starting the race from Houston while the rest of the field is in Austin.
Bortoleto qualified 13th on the road, but it didn't matter. He always knew he would be lining up at the very back of the grid on Sunday.
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