George Russell has been forced to change his power unit ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix after a crack on 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 was given a three-grid place penalty for speeding.
Russell came to a halt at the end of Q3 as the team detected a loss of water pressure, which means the Mercedes driver will take on his fourth power unit of 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 the water leak happened after Russell ran over the exit kerb 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 water leak. When I stopped on track, the car was leaking a load of water,” Russell, who is 50 points behind championship leader and team-mate Kimi Antonelli, told Sky Sports F1.
“Fingers crossed it doesn’t affect anything for the race.”
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George Russell reacts to stopping on track during qualifying at the Hungarian Grand Prix due to a water leak
It is the latest unreliability issue for Mercedes which has impacted both Russell and Antonelli in recent races.
Both drivers have lost valuable points due to engine-related retirements this season but Russell was “lost for words” at the previous race in Belgium after a bug in the power unit software led to a lack of straight line speed performance and a race-ending collision with Lewis Hamilton at Spa-Francorchamps.
Mercedes have fixed the bug 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 every car, but it affected George more than Kimi,” explained Mercedes technical director Simone Resta on Friday.
“We also need to bear in mind that, when comparing their performance in the last few races, Kimi was on a fresher power unit, which is, of course, always a bit better than quite a used power unit.
“That will change in the next races when we start to have a fresher power unit on George’s side. So, there’s a bit of everything. There’s a bit of software, but there’s also Kimi being out of phase with George’s programme. You sum up everything when you look at the final result.”
Russell: Would have been nice to be higher up
But, even prior to 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 run of events.
Russell will start one place ahead of Antonelli and will look to make inroads into his 50-point championship deficit but the British driver is unsure how easy it will be to get into the fight for the podium to potentially limit the damage.
“We were probably even further on Friday but we had the strongest race pace, which tends to say it’s not a car problem but a tyre problem,” he said.
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Look back at some of the most dramatic moments throughout the years at the Hungarian Grand Prix
“Time will tell in the race if we struck the right balance between the qualifying setup and race setup. We probably know we could make the car faster in qualifying trim at the expense of race performance.
“It’s going to be difficult to overtake. It would have been nice to be higher up.”
Sky Sports F1’s Hungarian GP schedule
Sunday July 26
7.35am: F3 Feature Race
9.05am: Porsche Supercup
10.20am: F2 Feature Race
12.30pm: Hungarian GP build-up: Grand Prix Sunday*
2pm: THE HUNGARIAN GRAND PRIX*
4pm: Hungarian GP reaction: Chequered Flag*
5pm: Ted’s Notebook*
*Also on Sky Sports Main Event
Formula 1 is in Budapest for the Hungarian Grand Prix with Sunday’s race at 2pm and build-up from 12.30pm, live on Sky Sports F1 and Sky Sports Main Event. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime