The 2026 Formula 1 season has not even officially started yet, but Valtteri Bottas already knows he will have an extra obstacle in his debut for Cadillac. The Finn will lose five positions on the grid for the Australian GP, regardless of where he qualifies, due to a pending penalty.
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This penalty is the result of an incident that occurred in his last participation in the category, at the 2024 Abu Dhabi GP. On that occasion, Bottas, still at Mercedes, was involved in a collision with Sergio Perez on the first lap, spinning the then Red Bull Racing driver, who will now be his teammate at Cadillac.
Later in the same race, Bottas locked both front wheels and hit the Haas car driven by Kevin Magnussen. After suffering damage, he retired from the race. As he could not serve the drive-through penalty applied for the collision with Magnussen, the stewards converted the sanction into a five-place grid penalty for the next race he competed in.
As the Finn did not race in 2025, the year he served as a reserve driver at Mercedes, there was no opportunity to serve the penalty. Thus, the ‘next race’ becomes precisely the opening round of the 2026 season, in Melbourne this weekend.
The situation persists despite a regulation change published by the FIA last year. The new rule determines that grid penalties must be served ‘in the next Sprint race or GP in which the driver participates, within the subsequent twelve-month period’, starting from 2026. However, as the change only applies to sanctions applied in the future, Bottas will still be required to serve the pending penalty.
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In practice, the five-place loss may have a limited impact on his weekend, as there is no expectation that Cadillac will advance beyond Q1 in its Formula 1 debut.
Bottas is not the only one with an unserved penalty in the recent history of the category. Former driver Jenson Button never served the three-place penalty received for causing an accident with Pascal Wehrlein at the 2017 Monaco GP, when he replaced Fernando Alonso in a one-off appearance. The 2009 champion, Button retired and did not return to Formula 1.
Another case involves Robert Shwartzman. Should he compete in a Formula 1 race in the future, he will need to serve a five-place penalty for ignoring yellow flags during FP1 with Sauber at the 2025 Mexico GP.
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