Hungarian GP: George Russell forced to change Mercedes power unit after water leak in qualifying | F1 News

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 during 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 was handed a three-grid place penalty for speeding.

Russell stopped at the end of Q3 as the team detected water pressure damage, meaning the Mercedes driver will run on his fourth power unit for 2026 but will not be hit with a grid penalty as the change is to the same specification and does not take him above the season-limit of four engines.

Mercedes believe Russell suffered a water leak after running over the exit curb at Turn 4 during his final run in Q3, where he did not improve his lap time.

“We lost water pressure and I had a leak. When I stopped on the track, the car was leaking a lot of water,” said Russell, who was 50 points behind championship leader and teammate Kimi Antonelli. Sky Sports F1.

“Fingers crossed it doesn’t affect anything for the race.”

It’s the latest in Mercedes’ unreliability problems that have affected both Russell and Antonelli in recent races.

Both drivers lost valuable points due to engine-related retirements this season but Russell was “lost for the word” in the previous race in Belgium due to a fault in the power unit software leading to a lack of straight line speed performance and race-ending collision with Lewis Hamilton at Spa-Francorchamps.

Mercedes fixed the bug for this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

“The software is the same for all cars, and it was in every car, but it affected Jorge more than Kimi,” Mercedes technical director Simone Resta explained on Friday.

“We also have to remember that, when comparing their performance in the last few races, Kimi was on a new power unit, which is definitely a bit better than a used power unit.

“That will change in the next races when we start a new power unit next to Jorge. So, there is a bit of everything. There is some software, but Kimi is going out of phase with Jorge’s program. You will compile everything when you see the final result.”

Russell: It would be better to go up

But, even before Saturday’s water leak in Hungary, Russell was off the pace of team-mate Antonelli – a continuation of their pace gap during the European event.

Russell will start one place ahead of Antonelli and look to enter his 50-point championship deficit but the British driver is unsure how easy it will be to fight to limit potential damage to the podium.

“We were probably more on Friday but we had our strongest race pace, which says it’s not a car problem but a tire problem,” he said.

“Time will tell in the race if we strike the right balance between the qualifying setup and the race setup. We probably know we can make the car faster in qualifying trim at the expense of race performance.

“It will be difficult to overtake. It would be nice to get up.”

Sky Sports F1’s Hungarian GP schedule

Sunday 26th July
7.35am: F3 Feature Race
9.05am: Porsche Supercup
10.20am: F2 Feature Race
12.30pm: Hungarian GP Build-up: Grand Prix Sunday*
2pm: Hungarian Grand Prix*
4pm: Hungarian GP Reaction: Checkered Flag*
5pm: Ted’s Notebook*

*Also on Sky Sports main events

The Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix is ​​in Budapest with Sunday’s race at 2pm and the build-up from 12.30pm, live on Sky Sports F1 and Sky Sports Main Event. Stream Sky Sports now – no contract, cancel anytime