F1 returnee Valtteri Bottas loses grid drop after all

Cadillac's Valtteri Bottas won't have to serve an old grid penalty on his Formula 1 return in Australia

Valtteri Bottas has been told he won't have to serve a lingering grid penalty at Formula 1's Australian Grand Prix.

Bottas accrued a five-place grid penalty on his last F1 outing at the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix for punting Red Bull's Sergio Perez - now his Cadillac team-mate - out of the way.

Drivers have to serve the penalty at the next round they take part in, which in the Finn's case would have been his F1 return this weekend with new entrant Cadillac.

A changing of the wording left Bottas unsure if he was still going to have to serve it, as the F1 now only takes grid penalties accumulated over the previous 12 months into account.

Article B1.9.5h of the 2026 sporting regulations now defines a grid penalty as "a drop of any number of grid positions for the next sprint or race in which the driver participates in the subsequent twelve (12) month period."

Valtteri Bottas remains a popular figure Down Under.

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images

But on Thursday the FIA confirmed a tweak to a different article, B2.5.4b, means that rule will now be applied retroactively, so Bottas will be able to line up in the spot he qualified. "Apparently it's vanished thanks to some new regulation," Bottas said. "So no grid penalty."

"Classiﬁed drivers who have received 15 or less cumulative unserved grid penalties for the race imposed in the previous twelve (12) months will be allocated a temporary grid position equal to their qualifying session classiﬁcation plus the sum of their unserved grid penalties," the FIA rules state.

The rule change will likely mean little to Bottas on Cadillac's debut weekend, as F1's 11th entrant isn't expected to be a threat for Q2.

"It's been hard work, lots of problem solving, but we've already made great progress," he said. "And really hats off to the whole team being here ready for race one, which I think already is incredible. So looking forward to this journey."

When asked what he wants to see from Cadillac, he replied: "Progress. That's the number one thing. We need to get better from the start of the year to the end of the year."