Sports · Motorsport · 1 day ago
George Russell faces grid penalty at Singapore Grand Prix
George Russell, a British driver for Mercedes, has been given a grid penalty for the Singapore Grand Prix.
He used power unit components beyond the number allowed for the season, after an engine failure at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
The penalty means he will start near the back, despite qualifying sixth.
Singapore is a difficult circuit for overtaking, so starting behind other cars could make it harder to gain places.
Russell and teammate Kimi Antonelli are also using different car specifications as Mercedes checks its latest upgrade.
Russell has said he expects to take another grid penalty later in the season because the team has run short of engines.
The Singapore race is scheduled for Sunday.
The FIA confirmed that George Russell will face a 40-place grid penalty at the 2026 Singapore Grand Prix after taking new power-unit components beyond his season allocation.
Russell is set to start the 62-lap race at Marina Bay from P21, according to GPFans.
Crash.net describes the penalty as an automatic back-of-the-grid start; the reports differ in how they describe the resulting grid position.
Russell said engine failures left him without an earlier engine to use, and that he expects to take another penalty later in the season.
He also trails Mercedes team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli in the championship standings, though the reports give different figures for the gap.
- Who
- Mercedes driver George Russell.
- What
- He received a grid penalty after taking power-unit components beyond his season allocation.
- When
- For the 2026 Singapore Grand Prix; the race is scheduled for Sunday.
- Where
- Marina Bay, Singapore.
- Why
- Engine failures left Russell needing new components beyond his permitted allocation.
This story does not have two clearly opposing sides.
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,
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 the failure I had to take it.
Russell suffered an engine failure at the Bahrain Grand Prix, according to Crash.net.
Russell said he expected to take another grid penalty later in the season.
Russell qualified sixth and crashed out early in the Sprint, according to GPFans.
Russell is due to start the Singapore Grand Prix from P21, according to GPFans.
- Penalty
- 40 grid places, according to GPFans
- Race
- 2026 Singapore Grand Prix
- Circuit
- Marina Bay
- Race distance
- 62 laps
- New components listed by GPFans
- 5th engine, 5th turbocharger, 5th exhaust set and 4th MGU-K
Sources
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