F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Alonso gets additional 15-place grid penalty

Fernando Alonso will receive an additional 15-place grid penalty for new power unit components ahead of the Malaysian Grand Prix.

The McLaren driver had already received a 30-place grid penalty after taking a new power unit for Friday practice, with Honda upgrading the engine block and exhaust. The upgrades focused on reducing weight and making the parts more robust, but will be used fully by Alonso in Japan - Honda's home race - next weekend.

As a result, Alonso has reverted to a previous specification of power unit for the rest of the Malaysian Grand Prix weekend. However, the power unit has a new turbo and MGU-H, both of which are the ninth of each component and therefore carry an additional 15-place grid penalty, bringing the total penalty up to 45 places in total.

Team-mate Jenson Button was already using a previous specification of power unit but will now run the new lightweight exhaust - as Alonso will - for the rest of the race weekend.

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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.