Mercedes confirmed that George Russell retired from the Canadian GP due to a serious battery failure in the power unit. The problem ended the Briton’s race while he was leading the event in Montréal.
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Russell’s car suddenly shut down on lap 30, leaving the way clear for Andrea Kimi Antonelli to claim his fourth consecutive victory in Formula 1. With the result, the Italian extended his lead to 43 points over his teammate in the championship.
Right after the race, Toto Wolff had already indicated that the problem was related to the power unit. Now, technical director James Allison detailed the cause of the failure and described it as “catastrophic.”
“It was a great weekend for us, mainly because we introduced our first major upgrade of the year,” Allison said in Mercedes’ post-race analysis video. “The performance was very strong, but everything was overshadowed by the disappointment of letting George down due to the car’s reliability.”
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The director explained that the failure originated directly in the hybrid system’s battery. “It was an engine shutdown caused by a battery failure, which suffered a catastrophic breakdown after about a third of the race and ended George’s race at that moment,” he highlighted.
Allison also revealed that the team identified clear signs of heat damage on the component. “We were able to see after the race that the battery was quite compromised. There was thermal damage and now we need to understand exactly what caused this so we can fix it in the coming weeks,” he added.
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