Mercedes brings to light the reason for Russell’s abandonment in his duel with Antonelli in Canada

It was lap 30 when the drama came. George Russell he jumped one of the Gilles-Villeneuve chicanes and the tremendous duel with Kimi Antonelli for the triumph with which we all glue ourselves to the television. A bucket of cold water for a British driver who urgently needed to start turning the tables and be able to cut points from the 19-year-old young man.

Something went wrong in Russell’s Mercedes and he was left stranded when he was the leader of the test. With the abandonment and victory of the World Cup leader, they are already 43 points those that the British must face regarding Antonelli. A major blow that was reflected on George’s face when he sat in the vial waiting to be brought back to the paddock.

“It was an excellent weekend from a performance point of view, it was marred by the disappointment we all felt at having let George down with the reliability of the car. It was an engine blackout caused by a battery failure.a, which suffered a catastrophic breakdown when a third of the race had been completed and put an end to George’s participation at that time,” explained James Alisson, technical director of the Brackley team, in statements reported by the official F1 website.

“At the end of the race we could clearly see that the battery was not working well, had some damage due to overheatingand we will have to find out in the coming days and weeks what exactly caused it and solve it,” he said in conclusion.

After this big setback, Russell is now bound to have great results at the start of the European tour. The first litmus test is the Monaco GP next weekend, where Antonelli will also seek to continue with his 2026 exhibition and achieve what would be the fifth consecutive victory of the season.