Mercedes has revealed the exact cause of George Russell’s retirement during the Canadian GP. The Briton retired on lap thirty at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and had to watch from the paddock as his teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli made a big move for the championship. According to Mercedes, the retirement was due to a battery problem: ‘We could see after the race that the battery was not in good condition’.
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George Russell had an eventful Canadian GP. The Briton was involved in a fierce battle with teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli for the win in the opening stages. The fight came to an abrupt end on lap thirty when Russell’s W17 broke down. A very angry driver then got out of the car and threw his headrest onto the circuit.
Russell received a conditional fine of five thousand euros for the offense. “My apologies to the marshals and the FIA,” he later wrote on his own social media. “I made their job harder than necessary. Emotions were running high at that moment.”
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Battery malfunction
Mercedes now reveals the exact cause of the driver’s retirement. “It was an important weekend for us because we introduced our first major upgrade of the year this weekend and we hoped it would perform well,” says technical director James Allison in Mercedes’ debrief video. “It did, but a weekend that was otherwise exceptionally good from a performance point of view was marred by the disappointment we all feel because we let George down with the car’s reliability.”
“Regarding the power unit failure for George: it was an engine failure caused by a battery malfunction,” Allison continues. “After a third of the race, a catastrophic failure occurred in it, ending his race. We could clearly see after the race that the battery was not in good condition. There was heat damage. We will have to investigate in the coming days and weeks what exactly the cause was and fix it.” The next Grand Prix, Monaco, is scheduled for June 7.
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