‘It’s happened too many times’ – Russell reacts to Bahrain GP retirement after ‘relentless’ run

George Russell was left to rue another retirement from what had looked like being a podium result at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, with the Briton admitting that his run of bad luck during 2026 has felt “relentless”.

After running consistently in the top three for much of the eventful encounter – which featured a delayed start due to rain, followed by a suspended start procedure and changing weather conditions – Russell was still on course for P3 amid a late-race Safety Car phase.

However, there was heartbreak for the Mercedes driver when he was forced to pull to the side of the track during that Safety Car period, with the Silver Arrows going on to confirm that this was due to a suspected power unit issue.

“It's just a bit of a shame,” the 28-year-old said of his retirement when speaking to the media afterwards.

“Another failure, when we were on course for a pretty certain podium. It's a tough one to take. It's unfortunately happened too many times this season, and, yeah, this is just where we are.”

As team mate Kimi Antonelli crossed the line in second place behind race winner Max Verstappen, Russell’s non-score means that the Italian now leads the championship by an even larger margin of 84 points. The DNF also marks Russell’s third non-finish of the campaign.

Pushed on whether he feels that his prospects for the championship are now over, Russell responded: “Yeah, yeah, I'd say so. I definitely needed things to… [for] everything to be going my way if I wanted to fight back and, of course, this weekend it hasn't.

“Never say never but, yeah, it's just pretty relentless this season with the amount of things that have gone away from us, that have been outside of our control.”