Valtteri Bottas will start the Mexico City Grand Prix from the back of the grid after the FIA confirmed a 50-place grid penalty for new engine components fitted to his Cadillac car.
The penalty stems from five new parts added to Bottas's pool for this weekend's race in the Mexican capital, each carrying a 10-place drop under Formula 1 rules.
New Engine Parts Trigger Penalty
The FIA has confirmed that a new internal combustion engine, turbocharger, energy store, control electronics unit and kinetic generator unit (MGU-K) have all been added to the Finn's allocation for the Mexico City GP.
All five components are beyond his annual allowance and each is a first offence for that specific part, resulting in the automatic 10-place penalty per component.
Per F1 rules, any cumulative grid drop worth more than 15 places is converted into an automatic back-of-grid start, meaning Bottas will start the race on the last row regardless of his qualifying position.
Cadillac Reliability Struggles
The decision follows Bottas's ninth DNF of the season in Austin last Sunday, with eight of those failures caused by technical problems on his car. A suspected power unit issue was named as the reason he pulled over with a handful of laps remaining.
Cadillac, as the newest team on the F1 grid, has struggled for reliability more than most across the car, including the engines purchased from Ferrari.
Future in Question
Bottas was not the first to drive the car with its new engine parts. Colton Herta used them in FP1 to earn the final superlicence point he needed to become eligible to race in F1 next year.
Herta is considered the front-runner to take Bottas's race seat should Cadillac decide to make a change, with Mercedes reserve Frederik Vesti also a contender after taking part in FP1 in Mexico.
Cadillac team principal Marcin Budkowski challenged Bottas to show "more" in the final weeks of the season, saying: "Valtteri did a really good race in Austin: he was strong in qualifying and he was strong in the race as well, and that's what he needs to do, race in, race out. We've seen weekends where he was on it, on pace with Checo [Sergio Perez] and sometimes even a bit quicker. We need more of that."
