Mercedes is still deciding when George Russell will take an engine-change penalty during the remainder of the 2026 Formula 1 season, with the team preparing for him to face a similar sanction to Kimi Antonelli at the Italian Grand Prix.
F1 championship leader Antonelli is expected to start from the back of the grid at his home race in Monza after taking a full power unit change. Reliability problems earlier in the season have pushed the Mercedes driver through his permitted allocation of engine components, while he also retired from the June Spanish Grand Prix after suffering a terminal power unit failure.
Why Monza is suitable for Antonelli’s penalty
Formula 1 teams usually try to schedule power unit changes and the resulting grid penalties at circuits where overtaking is relatively straightforward. Monza is considered a favourable venue because its layout is expected to provide several opportunities to recover positions.
That is why Mercedes is confident it can limit the impact of Antonelli’s penalty at his home race.
“We’ve regretted doing it in Monza previously because the degradation has been relatively low in recent years,” Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes trackside engineering director, said on the team’s Nu Silver Arrows Radio Show. “The cars had low drag, so they weren’t actually great for towing because they don’t sort of punch a particularly big hole in that configuration. And also the DRS effect was very small.
“That was in the past. Now you’ve got a real energy-starved circuit and it becomes one where there are four overtaking zones. You definitely can’t defend at all of them. And if you are a faster car, we expect it to be relatively straightforward to make progress.
“But saying that, how do we decide where to take them? The main point is based on where do you need the hardware.
“We’ve lost some internal combustion engines at reasonably low mileage. So the biggest thing is a case of we need to take it by this point. And if that point is a race where you really don’t want to be fighting from the back, we’ll consider bringing it earlier.
“There’s a bit of a sense that we’ve got a lead in both championships. Let’s do the painful stuff while we have a lead in both championships. Not, if that gets closer at the end, we don’t want to be adding, piling more and more pressure on ourselves.”
Mercedes weighs Russell’s engine-change timing
With Antonelli’s penalty already expected at Monza, Mercedes is turning its attention to Russell’s engine-change dilemma. The team would prefer to avoid both drivers starting from the back at the same race, if possible, so it is assessing circuits immediately after Italy where overtaking may be easier.
“We’ve not yet quite nailed down where George will take his, but it’s there for both of them because both of them have [suffered engine failures],” Bradley Lord, Mercedes deputy team principal, said.
“We saw the retirement for George in Canada, Kimi in Barcelona. And then George also had a stoppage in Hungary as well, right at the end of his qualifying lap there, it could have been a much more serious impact for us had that happened in the race.
“We’ve got some stuff to manage through in order to get to the end of the season on the freshest and most performant hardware possible. And it is always a trade-off between where are you getting into a risky zone on sort of high-life or high-mileage components.
“And what’s the risk of not scoring points from that versus the penalty of taking the grid penalty and having that deficit and then coming back hopefully through the field at the events where you need to do it, and which one statistically is likely to give you the best point scorer at the end.”
Based on those considerations, the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku is emerging as a likely option for Russell’s grid penalty because of its similarities to Monza. The new Madrid circuit remains an unknown, meaning Russell may need to complete the Italian and Spanish rounds before serving his penalty at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix at the end of September.
Mercedes could also consider Sepang, which hosts the Malaysian Grand Prix, one week after Baku. The circuit is likewise expected to offer a high number of overtaking opportunities.
Mercedes assessing power unit reliability risk
The team must also decide how long it can delay Russell’s engine change without taking excessive risks with the mileage and wear on his existing power unit components.
“There is a sort of probability of failure [to consider],” Shovlin added. “It’s never an absolutely known thing and that’s evolving race on race.
“So with Mercedes and the customer teams, every race you put more miles on the power units, every race they’re checked and trying to understand whether previous containments for faults have actually solved a problem.
“It could be that our optimism for taking a PU to the sixth or seventh race might be higher in a few races time than it is right now. Every race we’re rejigging plans just based on what we’ve learned and where we may have gained a bit more confidence.”
