What next for George Russell? Mercedes building bad cars with software problems and now water leak

Last week, they made it well known that a software glitch ruined Russell's race on the first lap of the Belgian Grand Prix; this time, the Briton's car suffered a water leak during qualifying today for the Hungarian Grand Prix. He was seventh fastest when the chequered flag waved to end the session, a tenth slower than his teammate Kimi Antonelli, who was fourth fastest.

Not long after the session ended, the messages were clear from the Mercedes camp. Russell's car was again 'cursed', as Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was quick to explain: "George was unlucky with what looks like a water leak. An underwhelming session. The water leak appeared when he was riding over a kerb."

What the team principal is suggesting is that one minute the water leak was not there, and suddenly it was when Russell drove over a kerb. Not him overdoing it and smacking a kerb? Who knows? All we know is that the water leak cost him.

Russell echoed his boss: "We lost water pressure and I had a water leak. When I stopped on track, the car was leaking a load of water. We don't know where it's come from. Fingers crossed it doesn't affect anything for tomorrow."

Despite the Mercedes blunder - a water leak that suddenly emerges must be the team's fault for building bad kit - Russell saw the positives: "We were probably even further yesterday but we had the strongest race pace, which tends to say it's not a car problem but a tyre problem.

"Time will tell if we struck the right balance between the qualifying setup and race setup. We probably know we could make the car faster in qualifying trim at the expense of race performance. It's going to be difficult to overtake. It would have been nice to be higher up," added Russell.

To sort the issue, Mercedes confirmed: "During George’s final lap in Q3, we detected a loss of water pressure on his car and instructed him to stop as a precaution once he had completed the lap. Following further inspection, we have elected to change his power unit ahead of tomorrow’s race.

"Moving to his fourth unit of the season and thus within his season allocation. As the change is also being made to replace a damaged component with one of the same specification, George will incur no grid penalty," added the statement.

Trailing teammate Antonelli by 50 points, not helped by his DNF at Spa-Francorchamps, Russell will be looking to narrow the gap at Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix, Round 11 of this world title fight.

Another DNF, related to whatever decides to break next on the #63 car, George simply cannot afford. Meanwhile, Kimi makes the most of a version of the car that appears to be of better build quality than his teammate's.
(Reporting by Agnes Carlier at Hungaroring)