George Russell has been forced to change his power unit ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix after a crack in his engine caused a water leak in qualifying.
Russell qualified a disappointing seventh for Sunday’s race, although he will start sixth ahead of team-mate Kimi Antonelli after the championship leader received a three-grid-place penalty for speeding.
Russell stalled at the end of Q3 when the team discovered a loss of water pressure, meaning the Mercedes driver will take on his fourth power unit in 2026 but will not be hit with a grid penalty as the change is to the same specification and does not take him over the four-engine season limit.
Mercedes believe the water leak happened after Russell went over the exit curb at Turn 4 during his final run in Q3, failing to improve his lap time.
“We lost water pressure and I had a water leak. When I stopped on the track, the car leaked a load of water,” said Russell, who is 50 points behind championship leader and teammate Kimi Antonelli. Sky Sports F1.
“Fingers crossed it doesn’t affect the race.”
It is the latest unreliability problem for Mercedes, which has affected both Russell and Antonelli in recent races.
Both drivers have lost valuable points due to engine-related retirements this season, but Russell was “at a loss for words” at the previous race in Belgium after a fault in the power unit’s software led to a lack of straight-line speed performance and a race-ending collision with Lewis Hamilton at Spa-Francorchamps.
Mercedes has corrected the error for this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
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Mercedes driver George Russell spins after contact with Lewis Hamilton and his race ends on the opening lap, but was the Ferrari driver’s penalty fair?
“The software is the same for all the cars and it was there in all the cars, but it affected George more than Kimi,” Mercedes technical director Simone Resta explained on Friday.
“We also have to bear in mind that when you compare their performances in the last few races, Kimi was on a fresher power unit, which of course is always a bit better than a completely used power unit.
“That will change in the next few races when we start to have a fresher power unit on George’s side. So there is a bit of everything. There is a bit of software, but there is also Kimi who is out of phase with George’s program. You sum it all up when you look at the final result.”
Russell: It would have been nice to be higher up
But even before Saturday’s water leak in Hungary, Russell was off the pace compared to team-mate Antonelli – a continuation of their pace gap during the European tournament.
Russell will start one place ahead of Antonelli and will look to make inroads into his 50-point deficit in the championship, but the British driver is unsure how easy it will be to get into the race for the podium to potentially limit the damage.
“We were probably even further on Friday but we had the strongest race pace, which usually says it’s not a car problem but a tire problem,” he said.
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Look back at some of the most dramatic moments over the years at the Hungarian Grand Prix
“Time will tell in the race whether we found the right balance between the qualifying set-up and the race set-up. We know enough that we could make the car faster in qualifying tuning at the expense of race performance.
“It will be difficult to overtake. It would have been nice to be higher.”
Sky Sports F1’s Hungarian GP programme
Sunday, July 26
7.35: F3 Feature Race
9.05: Porsche Supercup
10.20: F2 Feature Race
12.30: Hungarian GP build-up: Grand Prix Sunday*
14.00: THE HUNGARIAN GRAND PRIX*
16:00: Hungarian medical reaction: Checkered flag*
17:00: Ted’s Notebook*
*Also on Sky Sports Main Event
Formula 1 is in Budapest for the Hungarian Grand Prix with Sunday’s race at 14.00 and build-up from 12.30, live on Sky Sports F1 and Sky Sports Main Event. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime