​George Russell was running third in Bahrain with a handful of laps left when his Mercedes power unit failed, and the gap to teammate Kimi Antonelli in the drivers’ championship became 84 points. Formula 1’s official standings have it at 320 to 236.The failure costs him twice. He lost the points in Bahrain, and under the 2026 rules a dead power unit usually means new elements, which means grid penalties at whichever race they are fitted. Singapore is next: Practice 1 and Sprint Qualifying are on Friday, October 9, with the race on Sunday, October 11. We could not find a Singapore penalty for Russell in anything published by Mercedes or the FIA as of this writing, so the size of it, if there is one, is not yet on paper.What the allocation allowsEach driver gets four internal combustion engines, four turbochargers and four exhaust sets for the 2026 season, plus three each of MGU-Ks, energy stores and control electronics, according to Formula 1’s own component tracker. The first element over the limit costs 10 grid places and each further one costs five. Penalties at the same event add together, and a total above 15 places means starting behind every other classified car, per Formula 1’s guide to the penalties.That sets the threshold. A new engine and turbocharger over the limit is 15 places. A third element, say an exhaust set, makes it 20, and the back of the grid applies whatever he qualifies.Through round eight in Austria, Russell had used three engines, three turbos, three exhaust sets, two MGU-Ks, three energy stores and three control electronics. Mercedes then changed his entire power unit in Hungary after a water pressure loss in Q3. The team said it took no penalty because it replaced a damaged component with one of the same specification, and Formula 1 described it as his fourth power unit of the year. Nothing we found says whether that swap consumed his fourth engine, turbo and exhaust allocation. If it did, Bahrain’s failure leaves him with nothing in reserve on those parts.Russell at the 2025 Japanese Grand Prix (representative image). Photo: Liauzh, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsAntonelli has already paidAntonelli took his own penalty at Monza, which we covered in Antonelli Takes Monza’s Penalty Hit, after running short of engine parts. He leads the championship with the penalty behind him; Russell, 84 points back, has his ahead of him. That gap is more than three race wins on Formula 1’s arithmetic, and we have already looked at how far Antonelli has pulled away.Talk of a second penalty at Austin, for an upgraded engine, is not in any FIA or Mercedes document we could find, so it is not counted here. Russell won at Marina Bay in 2025, which is the only thing on the table that argues for him in Singapore.The FIA’s power unit tally for the weekend is the document that settles the question, and Practice 1 starts October 9. Should a driver whose engine fails while he is running third lose grid places at the next race?Sources: Formula