Desperate George Russell decision made by Mercedes amid threat of new F1 penalty
George Russell may avoid a penalty for the Las Vegas Grand Prix after Mercedes made the decision to retire his car at Interlagos.
The Brit was in the points places throughout the Brazilian Grand Prix but was slipping further back all the time with Mercedes struggling for pace. Shortly before the end of the race, the decision was taken that his car would be retired.
That call put Russell out of his misery but that was not the reason behind it. A Mercedes spokesperson confirmed the retirement was sparked but "high and worsening power unit oil temperatures" which put the engine at risk of "imminent failure".
Such an outcome may have put Russell on the back foot next time out in Vegas. He has already used all four internal combustion engines allowed per driver this season, meaning a new unit would spark an automatic grid penalty.
And Russell is not the only one walking a tightrope in that regard. With two more races left in the 2023 season, all 20 drivers have used all four of their allotted ICEs for the year while a quarter of the grid has gone over the allowance.
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By retiring Russell, Mercedes gave themselves the best chance of salvaging that power unit in case it is needed across the final two rounds. But that was of no consolation to team principal Toto Wolff, who wore his heart on his sleeve as he spoke at the end of a torrid weekend for Mercedes.
"An inexcusable performance," he said of the Grand Prix. "There are no words for that. That car finished second last week and the week before and whatever we did to it was horrible.
"Lewis survived out there but George... I can only feel for the two driving such a miserable thing. So it shows how difficult the car is, it's on a knife's edge. We've got to develop it better for next year because it can't be that in seven days of finishing on the podium with a solid, quick car, you're nowhere.
"We're clearly not world champions on Sprint race weekends. We did some good work here at the track to get it done, but it still doesn't explain what went wrong. The car drove like it was on three wheels and not four... This car doesn't deserve a win. We need to push through the last two races, recover – I think that's the most important thing – and see what we can do in Las Vegas, a different track, and Abu Dhabi.
"But the performance today was... I'm lacking words. Straight-line speed was one issue but probably not the main factor. I think the main factor was we couldn't go around the corners with the bigger wing with the pace we needed and we were killing the tyres, just eating them up within a few laps."
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