The first yellow card of the 2026 Tour de France was handed out on stage 2 with UAE Team Emirates-XRG's mechanic Bostian Kavcnik being fined 500CHF and punished for irregular assistance of a rider.
The yellow card appeared to be related to a mechanical incident suffered by eventual stage winner Isaac del Toro with 63km to go.
Del Toro was left stranded by the roadside as not one but two of his UAE team cars drove straight past him, having failed to spot him. The Mexican was in the end assisted by rival teams, but when UAE finally realised what was happening, Kavcnik was reportedly dispatched to ride Del Toro's spare bike back up the road towards the rider.
This apparently earned him a fine for going against race traffic.
Aside from that, the only other fines were imposed to the Movistar team, with sports director Joaquin Jose Rojas being fined 500CHF and Pablo Castrillo 200CHF for a stick bottle during the 168.5km stage from Tarragona to Barcelona.
Over the three weeks and 21 days of racing in a Grand Tour, there are many chances for riders and teams to break rules – purposefully or inadvertently – during the Tour, varying from minor infractions to more serious incidents.
Penalties can be picked up for lots of different things, spanning from small things like feeding too late into a stage or dropping litter outside of the designated zone, to bigger issues like dangerous sprint deviations and or prolonged sticky bottles.
Punishments can come in the form of cash fines, ranging from a few hundred Swiss francs or into the thousands (fines are always handed out in Swiss francs, CHF, which is the currency of the UCI). Riders can also be punished with time deductions, point deductions in certain classifications, relegation, even disqualification for the most serious infringements.
The penalties are generally proportional to the offence, for example dropping litter may be a cash fine, but a sticky bottle that saw a rider save time might get hit with a time penalty. Cash fines are generally deducted from the team's prize money haul at the end of the race.
Infractions that are considered dangerous can also earn a rider a yellow card, a system brought in a couple of years ago. If a rider or staff member receives more than one yellow card in the same race, they are disqualified and suspended for seven days. Three in 30 days earns a 14-day suspension, whilst six in a year means a 30-day suspension – though this is yet to happen.
Penalties are handed out by the race jury and recorded in each day's communiqué.
Below, we are tracking all penalties handed out to riders, and some of the notable fines for team staff, during the 2026 Tour.
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Tour de France 2026 fines, penalties and yellow cards
Stage 2
- Pablo Castrillo (Movistar) - 200CHF for sticky bottle
- Jose Joaquin Rojas (Movistar DS) - 500CHF for sticky bottle
- Bostian Kavcnik (UAE Team Emirates mechanic) - 500CHF fine and yellow card for irregular assistance of a rider
