George Russell confirms DOUBLE F1 penalty in more Mercedes woe

George Russell has revealed he is set to take two engine penalties before the 2026 F1 season is over.

The British star was dealt a blow at last weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix when he suffered an engine failure with just six laps to go.

With the engine unable to be repaired, it means Russell will have to take an engine penalty earlier than expected at the Singapore Grand Prix.

Mercedes were planning to give Russell a new engine for the final six races of the season starting with the United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas.

This is when Mercedes are planning to use their ADUO token by introducing an upgraded engine.

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Mercedes forced into change of plan

But Russell's engine failure has forced an engine change one race earlier at Marina Bay for the Singapore Grand Prix.

Russell has ruled out the prospect of running one engine for seven races, resigning himself to having to take two penalties before the end of the campaign.

He said at Marina Bay: "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.

"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."

Double blow for Russell

Aside from having to start at the back in Singapore, Russell will be running another disadvantage this weekend compared to his team-mate and championship leader Kimi Antonelli.

Russell dominated the Azerbaijan Grand Prix for Mercedes but found his performance disappeared at the last race in Malaysia when Mercedes introduced upgrades.

With Russell now seeing his title hopes all but over, he has agreed with Mercedes to run a previous spec of his car before the upgrades against Antonelli's latest spec, given he will be starting near the back.

Russell added: "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.

"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?"

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