Abu Dhabi GP: Romain Grosjean gets 20-place grid penalty

Grosjean's E22 F1 car will run with a sixth new internal combustion engine, turbocharger and MGU-H unit for Sunday's Yas Marina race.

The rules permit each driver to use only five new engines and certain associated power unit components during a single season, so Grosjean has now exceeded the limit for each of these.

The Franco-Swiss driver will thus take a grid penalty as punishment, but will likely serve most of his sentence through time penalties.

Grosjean is highly unlikely to qualify on pole in the 20-car field, and the FIA has decreed that any remaining unaccounted positions from his total punishment should be served as time penalties in the race.

The governing body says he should serve an extra five-second penalty for up to five un-served places, 10s between six and 10 places, or a drive-through penalty if he fails to drop between 11 and 20 places on the grid.

If he receives a further grid penalty for another offence, Grosjean will have to serve a 10s stop and go penalty if there is a total of more than 20 places in his penalty that he cannot serve.

Whatever his total penalty, Grosjean says he will not opt for Sebastian Vettel's US GP strategy of abandoning qualifying and starting from the pitlane.

"It's not ideal, but if it's a new one [engine] it's 100 per cent fresh and there are quite a lot of long straights here so it may help us a little bit," Grosjean said.

"Soft and supersoft [tyres at this race too] - let's see how it goes."