Russell to accept additional grid penalty this season
George Russell said on 8 October 2026 he will take another grid penalty this season in addition to the one that forces him to start this weekend's Singapore Grand Prix from the back of the grid.
Russell is 84 points behind Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli in the drivers' championship and will start Sunday's race at the Singapore Grand Prix from the back after fitting a new engine that takes him beyond his permitted number for the season. He explained the limits and the timing in detail: "You get (a limit of) four engines a season, so six races on each, and we have seven races to the end. So I will be taking another penalty, so yeah it's pretty relentless at the moment." His engine failure in Malaysia disrupted Mercedes' plan for him to use his older engine until an upgrade was available.
On the timing and choice of venue, Russell said: "I knew I was going to have penalty," and added: "The plan was always to go in Austin, and obviously Singapore is the second hardest track to overtake on on the calendars. So you would never choose to do it (here)." He said availability of replacement units left the team with no alternative: "But we have no engines because of all of the various failures, so there was no engine I could have reverted to from earlier in the season. With the failure I had to take it."
Russell outlined the trade-off Mercedes faced regarding the planned power-unit upgrade: "We don't have the (upgrade) this weekend, and because there are seven races remaining, you can either choose to roll the dice and hope it lasts for seven races, but also suffer a performance offset (as the engine degrades), or just accept I'll be taking another penalty." The report noted Antonelli will also likely take a back-of-the-grid penalty when his upgraded engine is introduced, following his previous penalty at the Italian Grand Prix, which he won from 19th on the grid.
Mercedes will run different aerodynamic specifications between its two cars this weekend after the upgrade introduced in Malaysia failed to deliver the expected performance gain. Russell will use the specification he drove to victory in Azerbaijan the week before Malaysia, while Antonelli will run the new package. Russell said: "I actually asked a question already on Friday in Sepang. At the end of the day it's the car I'm reverting to is a car that was on pole by 0.8secs and Kimi won the race before, so it's important to remember the context. It's not like reverting back to a launch car."
Addressing how the recent issues had affected his season, Russell described a series of setbacks and their impact: "I've probably had more failures this year than I've had in the three seasons put together, and of course it's tough to take," and added, "If I'm being 100% fair with myself, as I've said before, the performance this season hasn't been strong enough, and it probably would have affected me more if I'd have still been in the fight. "But obviously the pressure and the momentum, every setback has an impact on that momentum. "Since the start of the year (an engine failure) in Canada was the big one, and then, you know, the drive-through penalty in Monaco. The loss at the weekend has basically compromised two weekends for me. "Two races, Silverstone and Spa, with the PU issues we had (involving a loss of performance from the engine), it's been pretty incredible how things have panned out this year, but I think just focus on what you can control." The piece also recorded that Russell retired in Malaysia while Antonelli finished second to Red Bull's Max Verstappen.
Russell said the upgrade was most likely to arrive for the next race, the United States Grand Prix in Austin, and that he will take another new engine as soon as the planned upgrade is ready to try to reach the end of the season.