McLaren's Fernando Alonso handed 20-place grid penalty in Austria

Fernando Alonso's Formula One season continues to go from bad to worse after he was hit with a 20-place grid penalty at the Austrian Grand Prix.

The Spaniard has only finished two of his six races this season since moving from Ferrari back to McLaren, with his campaign blighted by reliability problems.

After being forced to retire in Malaysia, Alonso appeared to on the road to recovery with finishes - albeit out of the points - in China and Bahrain, but he has failed to finish any of the last three grands prix.

Brake, gearbox and exhaust failures were to blame for those early exits, and at the Red Bull Ring he was forced to use a fifth power unit of the season - one more than the permitted four per driver.

As a result the FIA have confirmed the two-time world champion will start from the back of Sunday's grid, while Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo has also been punished for a similar infringement.

After first practice in Austria on Friday the governing body announced: "McLaren"s Fernando Alonso and Red Bull"s Daniel Ricciardo will drop 20 and 10 places respectively on the grid for Sunday's race in Austria thanks to penalties for using more than the permitted four power units in a season.

"Ricciardo has taken on his fifth Renault engine, while Alonso is similarly on to his fifth Honda unit. Alonso's larger penalty is the result of the Spaniard also using a fifth turbocharger and a fifth MGU-H, each of which incur an additional five-place drop.

"Should either driver be unable to drop the required number of grid places - an inevitability for Alonso unless he qualifies on pole - then the penalties will be converted to in-race time penalties.

"These can range from a 5-second time penalty to a 10-second stop-go penalty depending on the number of unused places."