Mercedes has confirmed George Russell will start from the back of the grid at Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix due to an engine penalty.
Russell retired from third at last weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia due to a power unit failure with six laps remaining.
Mercedes need to introduce replacement power unit to Russell’s car in Singapore, which will take him above his quota of power unit components for the season and result in a back-of-the-grid penalty.
It is another setback to his championship hopes. His teammate Kimi Antonelli’s lead at the top of the F1 standings sits at 84 points, and Russell is second.
Team principal Toto Wolff’s pre-race statement said: “George has the added challenge of a power unit penalty [in Singapore], which will mean starting from the back of the grid on Sunday, following the engine failure in Malaysia.
“That is particularly frustrating given the way he drove last weekend and the result he deserved to be fighting for. Unfortunately, these things are part of the sport and our focus now is on giving him the best possible car and opportunities to fight back through the field.”
After reliability issues earlier this year, Mercedes was already planning for Russell to take an additional power unit and the resulting penalty before the end of the season, but was not expecting to do so in Singapore where overtaking in the race is notoriously difficult.
The failure in Malaysia forced the team’s hand as Russell does not have enough low-mileage components in his pool of engine parts to avoid taking a new power unit this weekend.
The situation is further complicated for Russell as Mercedes was planning to bring a performance upgrade to its power unit at the U.S. Grand Prix in two weeks’ time, which the team had hoped would coincide with the introduction of Russell’s final power unit of the year.
Mercedes has not yet confirmed whether the upgrade can be fast-tracked for introduction in Singapore or whether Russell will need to use older specification parts this weekend.
Mercedes deputy team principal Bradley Lord warned in Malaysia that Russell may face a “double whammy” if he then has to take another penalty at the U.S. Grand Prix to access the upgraded power unit for the rest of the season.
Wolff also confirmed that his team will use this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix to assess the aerodynamic upgrades it brought to its car in Malaysia.
Despite expectations that the update would move the championship leaders comfortably ahead of its competitors, Max Verstappen’s Red Bull proved to be fastest car at Sepang while Mercedes was left scratching its head over its relative lack of performance.
Wolff revealed his team would use the Singapore weekend to run direct comparisons between its previous aerodynamic package and the new updates.
“Malaysia was obviously a very difficult weekend for us,” Wolff said. “We have spent the days since then working hard to understand why our performance was not where it should have been.
“We have identified several areas we need to investigate further, but F1 doesn’t offer simple answers and we need more evidence before drawing firm conclusions.
“Singapore gives us an immediate opportunity to continue that work. The characteristics of the circuit are very different and that will help us build a clearer picture of where we are.
“That is why we will evaluate both the latest update package and our previous specification across the weekend to ensure we fully understand the direction we need to take.”
