09/11/2023
NEWS STORY
Following his retirement from the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, George Russell is to use a different power unit without penalty.
The Briton retired after 57 laps having dropped to ninth, just behind his Mercedes teammate, with an overheating issue.
As the German team seeks to regroup following the Interlagos nightmare, which came just days after Lewis Hamilton claimed second in Mexico, the German team is to change the power unit in Russell's car for the final two races.
"George will be on different power units for the next two races as was originally allocated," confirmed Riccardo Musconi, the Brackley-based outfit's head of trackside performance.
"The power unit used in Interlagos was meant to be its last race weekend," he admitted.
"So why did we retire his car? We started seeing some pressures and temperatures that were quite worrying and it got to a point where we were quite convinced it was about to fail.
"To avoid a possible fire and damage to other parts of the car, the logical conclusion was to retire the car," he continued. "He will be on a different power unit for the final two races so there is no issue from that point of view."
Referring to the Sao Paulo race, which Toto Wolff described as an "inexusable performance" from his team, Musconi said: "We were perhaps too conservative with the ride heights after Austin.
"Part of the answer may be there, but we don't think that explains the full picture as we saw it unfolding at the weekend."
Indeed, having admitted that the Mercedes ride height in Brazil was "way too high", Wolff has admitted that at one stage the German team had considered changing the set-up under parc ferme conditions and starting both cars from the pitlane.
"We didn't know fundamentally where we would have changed it because there is a much bigger issue," he said. "We thought about that but when thinking about maximising points, it was probably right to start like this."