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Grosjean handed 20-place grid penalty

ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Lotus Formula One driver Romain Grosjean could consider himself lucky that only the points will be doubled in this weekend's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix after collecting a 20-place grid penalty on Friday.

The Frenchman was handed the sanction for exceeding his allocation of power unit components for the season.

With only 20 cars taking part in Saturday's qualifying for the season-ending race, Grosjean is sure to start at the back of the field at Yas Marina but that will not be the end of the matter.

Race stewards said in a statement that any remaining positions beyond that will be replaced with time, drive-through or stop and go penalties applied depending on where he qualified.

So if Grosjean were to qualify 15th, he would drop five places and also have to serve a drive-through penalty.

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Ed Osmond)