(Motorsport-Total.com) – Kimi Antonelli has to start from the back of the field at the Italian Grand Prix due to a complete change of the power unit. Mercedes is currently deciding when George Russell will accept an engine penalty during the remainder of the 2026 Formula 1 season. The team is preparing for him to face the same fate as Antonelli at the Italian Grand Prix.
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The leader of the Formula 1 World Championship faces a demotion to the back of the starting grid at his home race in Monza because his entire power unit is to be replaced. The reason for this is reliability problems at the start of the season, which have already exhausted the Italian’s allowed quota of power unit components. Antonelli had to retire from the Barcelona Grand Prix in June due to a final power unit failure.
Formula 1 teams choose specific races for power unit component changes and the associated grid penalties whenever possible. Monza is traditionally considered a preferred venue due to its track characteristics, as overtaking there is comparatively easy.
Therefore, Antonelli will serve his grid penalty at his home race. Since his quota is already used up and he needs a new power unit anyway, Mercedes is confident it can minimize the impact of the demotion.
Andrew Shovlin explains Mercedes’ considerations
“We regretted doing it in Monza in the past because the performance drop in recent years was relatively small,” says Mercedes’ chief race engineer Andrew Shovlin in the team’s internal Nu Silver Arrows Radio Show. “The cars had little drag, so they were actually not particularly good for slipstreaming because in this configuration they don’t create a particularly big hole in the air. And the DRS effect was also very small.”
“That was the case in the past. Now you have a track where there is really an energy deficit, and it becomes a track with four overtaking zones. You definitely can’t defend all of them. And if you have a faster car, we expect it to be relatively straightforward to move forward.”
“But when you say that, how do we decide where to take the penalties? The most important point is based on where you need the hardware. We have lost some combustion engines at relatively low mileage. So the most important thing is that we say: By this point, we have to take one. And if that point falls on a race where you really don’t want to fight from the back of the field, we will consider taking it earlier.”
“There is a bit of a feeling that we have a lead in both championships. Let’s get the painful things done while we are ahead in both championships. If it gets tighter towards the end, we don’t want to put more and more pressure on ourselves.”
How Mercedes thinks about the timing of Russell’s penalty
After Antonelli’s fate is set, Mercedes is turning its attention to when Russell should serve his engine penalty. The team wants to avoid, if possible, demoting both drivers simultaneously in Monza. This brings the immediately following tracks into focus, especially those where overtaking is considered comparatively easy.
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“We haven’t quite decided where George will take his penalty yet, but it is coming for both because both [have suffered engine damage],” says Mercedes’ deputy team principal Bradley Lord. “We saw George’s failure in Canada, Kimi’s in Barcelona. And then George also had a stoppage in Hungary, right at the end of his qualifying lap there. That could have had much more serious consequences for us if it had happened during the race.”
“We have to manage some things to get to the end of the season with the freshest and most powerful hardware possible. And it’s always a compromise between when you enter a risky area with components that have high durability or high mileage.”
“And how big the risk is of not scoring points because of that, compared to the penalty, taking the grid penalty, having that setback, and then hopefully moving back up through the field in the races where you have to do it. And which option statistically probably yields the most points in the end.”
Russell: Baku would be the logical choice
Based on these considerations, Baku is likely a candidate for Russell’s grid penalty, as the track characteristics resemble those of Monza. The completely new circuit in Madrid is still associated with too many unknowns. This means Russell would only have to survive two Formula 1 race weekends with the existing upgrade level – Italy and Spain – before serving his grid penalty at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix at the end of September.
After that, Mercedes might possibly consider Sepang, where the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia is held one week after the race in Baku. There are also likely to be numerous overtaking opportunities there.
Another factor in Mercedes’ considerations is how long the team can delay the engine change and what risk it wants to take given the increasing mileage and wear of Russell’s existing power unit components.
“There is a certain probability of failure [that must be taken into account],” adds Shovlin. “That’s never something you know absolutely precisely, and it evolves from race to race. At Mercedes and the customer teams, more kilometers are added to the power units at every race. After each race, they are checked and we try to understand whether earlier measures to contain faults have actually solved a problem.”
“It could be that our optimism to use a power unit until the sixth or seventh race is greater in a few races than it is now. After each race, we adjust our plans based on what we have learned and where we may have gained a bit more confidence.”
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