Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMcLaren

Button grid penalty increases to 70 places

Jenson Button will take a 70-place penalty on today's Mexican Grand Prix grid after further power unit component changes.

Button was already set to have a 50-place penalty having taken two new phase four Honda power units and turbochargers, MGU-Hs and MGU-Ks in order to increase his pool of units for the remaining races this season. However, reliability issues throughout practice eventually saw Button miss qualifying as he reverted to the first power unit he had used.

McLaren has now given Button a new turbocharger and MGU-H, adding a further 20 places to his grid penalty to give him a combined drop of 70 places overall. It marks the biggest grid penalty for any driver so far this season.

Button will start last on the grid with Kimi Raikkonen one place ahead of him as the Ferrari driver has a 35-place grid penalty following a fire in FP3 yesterday. Button's McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso will start ahead 18th due to a 10-place grid penalty.

REPORT: Rosberg beats Hamilton to Mexican GP pole

AS IT HAPPENED: Mexican Grand Prix - Qualifying

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.