Daniel Ricciardo's Formula One title prospects have received a major blow after learning he will be slapped with grid penalties for the Canadian Grand Prix.
The 28-year-old ace produced the greatest win of his career in Monaco last month, but that race will come at a cost.
The Red Bull star was forced to win with a damaged Renault power unit and guided his handicapped car home for a famous victory.
Ricciardo won in Monaco from pole position, but could be starting a long way back in Montreal according to Red Bull technical head Adrian Newey.
With only a third of the season gone, Ricciardo has already used a big chunk of his engine parts allowance for the entire campaign.
"We could be suffering some quite big penalties," Newey said.
"We are only allowed two batteries etc and the system in that sense seems completely wrong.
"He will definitely be taking some penalties in Montreal, we haven't heard at the moment just how many.
"One of the things there is whether the battery was damaged or not in Monaco, so until we know that from Renault we don't know exactly what we're facing."
Ricciardo's win in Monaco, his second of the season after taking victory at the Chinese Grand Prix in April, took him to third in the championship.
Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel, who have won four championships each, lead the series.
Ricciardo is 38 points behind Hamilton, while Vettel has a 24-point gap on the Australian.
Despite not having won a title before, pundits had begun talking up Ricciardo as a serious threat to breakthrough this year after his Monaco heroics.
"He's certainly of that ilk now, and you've got to include him in those conversations when you're talking about who's the best driver on the grid," F1 commentator Martin Brundle said.
"He's the best overtaker on the grid, bar none, and by some margin I would say.
"He's delivering the pace and he probably hasn't had as many pole positions as he would have liked and deserved, but he's never had a dominant car in qualifying.
Australia hasn't had an F1 champion since Alan Jones in 1980, while the great Jack Brabham is the only other driver from this country to do so having won it three times (1959, 1960, 1966).
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