Red Bull’s Sergio Perez will take a five-place grid drop following Qualifying ahead of Sunday’s Formula 1 United States Grand Prix.

The Mexican is one of two drivers to have taken on fresh power unit elements this weekend.

Perez and Alfa Romeo Sauber driver Guanyu Zhou have both received new internal combustion engines, their fifth of the season.

Both have therefore been handed five-place penalties for Sunday’s race, though it is expected both Ferrari drivers face a similar fate.

Those are yet to be confirmed, with Ferrari only likely to make any changes after Free Practice 2. Any penalties therefore won’t be confirmed until they take to the track in Free Practice 3 on Saturday.

Perez heads into this weekend’s event off the back of a solid string of results, including victory in Singapore and second in Japan.

“It certainly helps when you have a good run of races, the confidence and momentum is with you, but that doesn’t mean anything,” the Red Bull driver said on Thursday.

“You have to go out there and prove again and again. Hopefully, this weekend can be a good one, we can have a strong pace.

“It will be nice to get a strong result before [my] home race.”

During the week, the FIA World Motor Sport Council tweaked the way the Formula 1 grid is drawn up with respect to grid penalties.

That came in response to the confusion which surrounded the starting order for the Italian Grand Prix, when nine drivers faced drops ranging from five places to Rear of Grid starts.

In previous years, penalties were applied in chronological order with the grid redrawn after each. That created a situation where a driver could start ahead of where he qualified despite, theoretically, having taken a drop.

Now, penalties are applied simultaneously, with those without penalties shuffled forward to fill any vacant grid spots.

Qualifying for Sunday’s race takes place at 17:00 local time on Saturday (23:00 BST/09:00 AEDT Sunday).