By: The Stuttgart marque has achieved its planned objective with George Russell. The engine failure suffered by car No. 63 a few laps from the end of the Malaysian GP, as already written a few weeks ago (read here), is certainly not a cause for concern for the three-pointed star.
There is no real reliability issue, if anything: the working group at Brixworth had already factored it in. By asking Russell to use the specification up to and including Singapore, it knew exactly what it was getting into. Mercedes has achieved its aim. The power unit, first fitted in Hungary, covered a theoretical distance of five to six Grands Prix, without taking into account any possible rotation with other units. With a 24-race calendar, that amounts to a quarter of the season.
A sacrifice that had to be made
An excellent result for Mercedes. The engine covered the mileage required to ensure it never incurs penalties during the championship. The pity is that, in doing so and in pursuit of its objectives, it has sent George Russell to the scaffold. The Briton has been stripped of every chance of succeeding against his team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
It is not as though he should have been given special treatment and, certainly, carrying out the test was far more important than keeping the title fight between its drivers alive. Conducting a reliability test was a highly justifiable decision: 2027 development and strengthening the team for the future are worth it.
Russell faces a complicated end to the season
If one of its drivers had to be made a sacrificial victim, it was clear that the choice would fall on Russell. However, this decision has now placed George in an extremely difficult position. Beyond the points lost in Malaysia, the Singapore GP is certainly not the right place to fit a new unit and take a penalty, so George may be forced to use a very old power unit, with the risk of losing it during the race, as happened in Kuala Lumpur.
If everything goes well, Mercedes will use the Austin round to fit him with a new unit and have him serve the penalty. At an event where he would be forced to fight back from the rear of the grid and try to limit the damage as much as possible. That would mean tackling two of the final seven Grands Prix with bated breath, hoping not to receive any further bad news from his engine. Should Singapore instead be chosen to fit the new unit, things would become even more complicated for George.
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