Why Does Liam Lawson Have a 60-Place Grid Penalty for the US Grand Prix?

Liam Lawson will be racing in F1 as a full-time driver for the first time at the US Grand Prix this weekend. However, his full-time debut in the sport is starting on a far-from-ideal note with a 60-place grid penalty for Sunday’s race at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA).

Lawson will have to essentially start the Grand Prix in Austin from the back of the grid due to his car taking additional power unit elements. Lawson is taking over Daniel Ricciardo’s car, as RB replaced the Aussie with the Kiwi driver after the Singapore GP weekend.

Ricciardo’s usage of the car’s engine elements for 14 races has put Lawson at a disadvantage for the US GP. The #30 driver will have to take six additional elements for his power units that breach the season’s allocation.

These six elements include a fifth Internal Combustion Engine (ICE), a fifth Turbo Charger (TC), a fifth Motor Generator Unit-Kinetic (MGU-K), a fifth Motor Generator-Heat (MGU-H), a third Energy Store (ES), and a third Control Electronics (CE).

Liam Lawson receives 60 place grid penalties for new PU elements pic.twitter.com/KR15XMpF4e

— RBR Daily (@RBR_Daily) October 18, 2024

Each of these additional elements is the first breach of allocation for that particular part on Lawson’s [previously Ricciardo’s] VCARB-01. That is why, there is a 10-place grid penalty for each of the six elements, cumulating it to be a 60-place grid drop.

Per Article 42.3 d of the FIA’s Sporting regulations, any driver who accrues grid penalties of more than 15 places will have to start from the back of the grid behind any other classified driver during qualifying. This is what the stewards stated in their decision document for Lawson’s car as well in Austin.

So, the New Zealander will start his first full-time F1 Grand Prix from the back of the grid this Sunday, unless any other driver gets a similar penalty. Nevertheless, this penalty won’t affect Lawson for the sprint race and he can race from where he qualifies during the sprint shootout on Friday.

Lawson’s 60-place grid penalty isn’t the biggest in F1

While the 60-place grid penalty seems like a big number, Lawson’s US GP penalty isn’t the biggest grid penalty in F1 history. That record is under Jenson Button’s name. In 2015, the then-McLaren driver received a 70-place grid penalty at the Mexican GP.

The Woking outfit were suffering from the unreliable Honda power unit back then. In Mexico, the team used two new Honda power units to increase Button’s pool of engines which had already accumulated a 50-place grid penalty for the British driver.

Furthermore, they had to take an additional turbocharger, control electronics, and an MGU-H, which added 20 more places to the grid drop. As it was still a back-of-the-grid start, the penalty was meaningless with the number of places being so high. But that has been the norm of the sport.