The 2026 F1 season hasn’t began but, however Valtteri Bottas might already face a grid penalty in his Cadillac debut.
Bottas can be dropped 5 locations from the grid for this weekend’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix because of his unpaid F1 penalty.
The 36-year-old Finn will return to the grid with F1’s eleventh new staff this season after spending a 12 months on the sidelines as Mercedes’ reserve driver in 2025.
Bottas’ final F1 race earlier than dropping his Sauber seat, the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, noticed him concerned in a collision with former Purple Bull driver and present Cadillac teammate Sergio Perez.
Bottas spun Perez on the primary lap of the ultimate race of the 2024 season, incomes him a 10-second time penalty. Late within the race he locked each entrance wheels and crashed into Kevin Magnussen’s Haas.
Bottas was injured and retired from the race. Having didn’t honor the drive-through penalty imposed for the collision on Magnussen, the stewards modified the penalty to a five-place grid drop penalty within the subsequent race.
Bottas didn’t compete final 12 months, so there isn’t a probability of a penalty and his “subsequent race” can be in Melbourne this weekend.
That is regardless of rule adjustments introduced by the FIA final 12 months.
The brand new guidelines state that grid drop penalties will apply from 2026 “on the subsequent dash or race wherein the motive force participates inside 12 months thereafter”.
The rule change solely applies to future sanctions, that means Bottas will nonetheless must serve any excellent penalties.
Cadillac shouldn’t be anticipated to make it previous Q1 in its F1 debut in Australia, so it’s unlikely to deliver a lot change to Bottas’ weekend.
Bottas shouldn’t be the one F1 driver with an impressive grid penalty.
Jenson Button made a one-off look as an alternative to Fernando Alonso on the 2017 Monaco Grand Prix, by no means serving the three-place grid penalty he acquired for his collision with Pascal Wehrlein.
The 2009 world champion, now 46, has since retired from motorsport and won’t serve any penalty.
If Robert Schwartzman had been to enter F1, he could be given a five-place grid penalty for ignoring a yellow flag throughout FP1 for Sauber on the 2025 Mexico Metropolis Grand Prix.
