Valtteri Gets A Clean Slate: Bottas' Five-Grid Penalty 'Vanishes' Ahead Of Melbourne

Last Updated:March 05, 2026, 16:43 IST

Valtteri Bottas will start the Australian Grand Prix with no grid penalty after a rule change erased his penalty from the 2024 Abu Dhabi GP.

Valtteri Bottas will start his comeback weekend at the Australian Grand Prix with a clean slate — after a timely tweak to the rulebook wiped out a lingering grid penalty.

The Finn, now racing for the new Cadillac Formula One Team, had been set to carry a five-place grid drop into Melbourne from the 2024 season.

Instead, the punishment has effectively disappeared thanks to updated Formula One sporting regulations.

Bottas broke the news himself — in classic Valtteri fashion.

“You don’t follow me on Instagram?" he joked when asked about it during Thursday’s driver press conference. “I just did an announcement 20 minutes ago. Apparently, it’s vanished thanks to some new regulation.

“So no grid penalty. It is good."

The penalty that never made the grid

The five-place penalty dated back to the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix when Bottas, then driving for Sauber, collided with Sergio Pérez.

At the time, the rules meant the penalty would carry over to his next race start, even though Bottas sat out the entire 2025 season.

Last year’s regulations introduced a 12-month limit for serving grid penalties, but crucially, that rule wasn’t retroactive, leaving Bottas technically still liable.

The latest rule update has now cleaned up that grey area.

Under the new regulations, only unserved grid penalties issued within the previous 12 months — and totalling 15 places or fewer — are considered when forming the race grid. Bottas’ penalty, handed out in December 2024, falls outside that window.

Result: penalty erased.

A fresh start and an awkward reunion

There’s also a touch of irony in the timing.

The driver Bottas collided with back then? Perez, who is now his teammate at Cadillac.

Both drivers spent 2025 away from F1 before landing seats with the American newcomer, which joins the grid as the sport’s 11th team this season with Ferrari power units.

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