F1 News: George Russell Mercedes 'grid penalty confirmed' for Singapore Grand Prix

George Russell, Mercedes, Hungary, 2026 — Photo: © IMAGO

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George Russell 'grid penalty confirmed' for Singapore Grand Prix

Russell set for more and more pain after Bahrain

Dan Ripley Global Editor

Professional F1 journalist and analyst

Wednesday 7 October 2026 08:14

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George Russell's Bahrain Grand Prix catastrophe has got even worse following his retirement from the race with a power unit failure.

Russell was running P3 behind his Mercedes team-mate and title rival Kimi Antonelli at Sepang before his engine broke down with just six laps to go on the start/finish straight while running behind the safety car.

With Antonelli claiming second place behind race winner Max Verstappen, it extended the Italian's gap over Russell, his nearest title rival, to 84 points and well over three grand prix victories with just seven rounds to go.

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Russell blow for Singapore

But the Bahrain pain will linger on for Russell, as according to The Times, Mercedes were unable to fix his power unit for the upcoming weekend's Singapore Grand Prix.

Heading into the Bahrain Grand Prix, Russell had already used all four of his internal combustion engines (ICE) allocated for the season, meaning using a new one would trigger a grid penalty.

That will now come into force at Marina Bay, meaning the British driver will likely have to start from the very back.

To make things worse for Russell, overtaking at the night race venue is a tricky prospect, further damaging his hopes of picking up a good race result on Sunday.

American nightmare for Russell

The damage doesn't stop there either. Russell was hoping to limp through Singapore so that he could take an engine penalty at the United States Grand Prix at the following race to fit in the new updated Mercedes engine as per their ADUO token.

Instead he may need to take a 'double whammy' of penalties according to deputy team principal Bradley Lord, who admitted Mercedes may have to speed up the introduction of the updated engine to prevent Russell getting hit with back-to-back penalties.

He said: "Yes, there may be a double whammy effect there after such a gut-wrenching blow.

“It was devastating to see him have to pull off as he did.

“He came on the radio behind the safety car and said the PU started to sound funny. "We saw sensors then misbehaving and it was clear we had to pull the car over and we'd had a failure of some sort.

“We still need to understand what it means for his pool because he's not rich in low-mileage power units either. So that may mean we need to alter what had been our previous plan."