Mercedes' Bottas takes second new F1 engine of Abu Dhabi GP weekend

The Mercedes driver started the Yas Marina event facing a back of the grid start because Mercedes had to fit his fourth engine of the campaign in the wake of a failure he suffered during the Brazilian Grand Prix.

But that fourth power unit suffered a pneumatic leak that could not be fixed, and a decision was taken by Mercedes on Friday night to replace Bottas's engine with another completely new one to avoid the risk of him hitting any reliability trouble in the race.

Mercedes confirmed that Bottas would receive a new internal combustion engine, MGU-H, MGU-K and turbo, and that the change would not result in any further penalty.

Despite his back of the grid start, Bottas has said he hopes the fresh engine - which he should be able to run harder than anyone else - will allow him to fight for the pole position time.

"I still want to fight for the pole, even though I would not keep it," he said. "That would be good fun and with a fresh engine as well.

"But definitely the main focus just has to be the race pace, because we know we're going to start from the back.

"We will see what we can do differently maybe with the set-up, or if there's anything we can find to prioritise the race pace."