George Russell has admitted that more penalty misery is on the way even after this weekend's Singapore Grand Prix. The British driver will serve grid penalties for new engine parts, required after his power unit failure last Sunday in Malaysia.
Engine limits and upgrade delays
Formula One rules limit the number of components each driver is allowed to use across a season. Russell will exceed that limit as soon as he heads out for Friday practice in Singapore. He said on media day that it will not be the last time this season he receives a grid drop.
Mercedes had hoped his older parts would last until their upgraded power unit was ready, but that will not be until at least the next race, the United States Grand Prix, later this month. Russell will therefore take more engine parts, along with the associated penalties, when that upgrade becomes available.
Russell explains the penalty situation
"You get [a limit of] four engines a season, so six races on each, and we have seven races to the end," Russell said. "So I will be taking another penalty. It's pretty relentless at the moment."
He added: "I knew I was going to have a penalty. 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]. 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 this failure, I had to take it."
"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."
Chassis change for comparison
The new engine parts will not be the only change Mercedes are making this weekend. Russell is also reverting to an older specification of the chassis itself, as the team runs an experiment. Their big upgrade, introduced in Malaysia, did not provide the expected performance boost.
Russell will go out on track with the older spec while team-mate Kimi Antonelli continues with the new parts, allowing Mercedes to compare data and understand what is happening. 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 0.8 seconds [in Azerbaijan] and Kimi won the race before, so it's important to remember the context. It's not like reverting back to a launch car."
"Given the circumstances of the grid penalty as well, it just seemed like a no-brainer. For me, unfortunately we're not going to be fighting for a podium this weekend, it's exceptionally unlikely, so it's more important for us to try and understand, was Malaysia a one-off or was it the upgrade?"
