George Russell on brink of engine penalty after latest Mercedes issue in Hungary F1 qualifying
Mercedes has identified why George Russell stopped on track at the end of F1 qualifying in Hungary.
Mercedes has revealed that a water leak caused George Russell to stop on track during Formula 1 qualifying at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Russell’s F1 struggles continued in Budapest as he could only qualify seventh, before his Mercedes concerningly broke down on track as he made his way back to the pits at the end of Q3.
It has since emerged that Russell suffered a water leak after riding over a kerb at Turn 4, which caused him to grind to a halt.
"We lost water pressure and I had a water leak. When I stopped on track, the car was leaking a load of water,” Russell told Sky Sports F1 after qualifying.
“We don't know where it's come from. Fingers crossed it doesn't affect anything for tomorrow.”
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said: “George was unlucky with what looks like a water leak. An underwhelming session.
"The water leak appeared when he was riding over a kerb.”
Mercedes confirmed that it has elected to change Russell's power unit, moving the 28-year-old Briton onto his fourth unit of the season.
As this is without Russell's permitted allocation for 2026, he will incur no penalty.
However, if Russell needs a fifth ICE at any point, that will trigger an automatic grid drop.
Both Mercedes drivers are already on their fourth power unit, meaning a penalty at some stage after the summer break is likely.
Russell is not overly optimistic about his chances of making progress in the Hungarian Grand Prix.
"We were probably even further yesterday but we had the strongest race pace, which tends to say it's not a car problem but a tyre problem," he added.
"Time will tell tomorrow 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.
"Time will tell tomorrow if we make that right balance. It's going to be difficult to overtake. It would have been nice to be higher up.”
Russell is 50 points behind Mercedes team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli in the championship heading into the final F1 race before the summer break.
Russell starts sixth, ahead of Antonelli who was hit with a three-place grid penalty for failing to slow sufficiently for yellow flags in qualifying.
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