Mercedes are scheduling George Russell's next grid penalty, and that's the rule's fault

The penalty was only the start of it. A crash in Singapore left Russell racing on used Mercedes parts, according to Motorsport.com. The same report says he "fought a brake pedal that decided to go squishy" and spent two hours in the cockpit while a ruptured drink bottle leaked over him.

Mercedes were also making choices about the car that weekend. The team ran split specifications in Singapore, with Russell switching back to the previous version of the car, the one he had won with in Baku.

The next penalty already has a weekend pencilled in

You'd expect a driver who has just started that far back to want to stay away from the back of the grid. Instead, Motorsport.com reports that Russell and Mercedes are targeting a US race for his next engine grid penalty, with the team preparing for it now.

That's the detail that matters. The penalty isn't arriving as a surprise or as the price of a failure on the day. It's being placed in the calendar where it does the least damage.

A penalty you can schedule is a planning tool

Mercedes are right to do this. If the rules let a team pick where it takes a grid drop, the sensible thing is to book it like a hotel room and choose the weekend that costs the least. Nobody should criticise a team for managing its season well.

But that's exactly the problem. A punishment the team can schedule stops being a punishment. Once a grid drop becomes something you plan around, it isn't deterring anyone from replacing parts. It's just another line in the weekend plan.

That's on the rule, not on Mercedes. Russell's next penalty will be taken at a time of the team's choosing, and the fact that this is the smart play is the clearest sign the penalty no longer bites.