Russell to take new power unit and grid penalty in Singapore

Mercedes has confirmed that George Russell will take a new power unit at the Singapore Grand Prix after a mechanical failure forced him to retire in Malaysia, triggering a grid penalty because the replacement takes him beyond the season’s permitted component allowance. The replacement was confirmed after Russell’s car stopped in the closing stages of the Malaysia race. Mercedes has not disclosed the failure’s root cause. The penalty will affect Russell’s starting position in Singapore, but the sources do not specify how many places he will drop. Mercedes deputy team principal Bradley Lord said an initial inspection found a mechanical failure on the power-unit side, while the cause remained under investigation. Russell also described the problem as sudden and said he did not know what had caused it. He rejected safety-car running as an established explanation for the failure. The Singapore replacement follows an earlier possibility raised by Mercedes that the damaged unit might be repairable. Lord had said the team still needed to assess what the failure meant for Russell’s available power-unit pool.