The Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia turned into an absolute disaster for George Russell, as the Mercedes driver was forced to retire late in the race due to a mechanical issue.
It was a devastating end to a weekend that promised so much. George Russell had run consistently inside the top three for the vast majority of an eventful encounter, which had already thrown everything at the field including a rain-delayed start, a suspended start procedure, and wildly shifting weather conditions. Even amidst a late-race Safety Car phase, the Briton looked locked in for a comfortable P3 finish.
Then came the heartbreak. The Mercedes driver had to pull his machine to the side of the track during that very Safety Car period, with the Silver Arrows subsequently confirming a suspected power unit issue.
“It's just a bit of a shame,” the 28-year-old said to the media after the race. “Another failure, when we were on course for a pretty certain podium. It's a tough one to take. It's unfortunately happened too many times this season, and, yeah, this is just where we are.”
The timing couldn't be crueler for the championship battle. While team mate Kimi Antonelli crossed the finish line in second place behind race winner Max Verstappen, Russell’s non-score means the Italian now extends his championship lead to an even larger margin of 84 points. This DNF officially marks Russell’s third non-finish of the campaign.
When pushed on whether his championship aspirations are now effectively over, Russell was brutally honest. “Yeah, yeah, I'd say so,” he admitted. “I definitely needed things to… [for] everything to be going my way if I wanted to fight back and, of course, this weekend it hasn't. Never say never but, yeah, it's just pretty relentless this season with the amount of things that have gone away from us, that have been outside of our control.”
