“I knew I was going to have a penalty,” Russell said. “The plan was always to go in Austin, and obviously Singapore is the second hardest track to overtake on on the calendars. So you would never choose to do it (here).
“But we have no engines because of all of the various failures, so there was no engine I could have reverted to from earlier in the season. With the failure I had to take it.
“We don’t have the (upgrade) this weekend, and because there are seven races remaining, you can either choose to roll the dice and hope it lasts for seven races, but also suffer a performance offset (as the engine degrades), or just accept I’ll be taking another penalty.”
Antonelli will also likely have another back-of-the-grid penalty when the upgraded engine is introduced, following his previous one at the Italian Grand Prix, which he won from 19th on the grid.
Russell will also be reverting to an older specification car in Singapore this weekend.
Mercedes introduced an aerodynamic upgrade in Malaysia last weekend, but it did not give the car the performance uplift expected.
So in an attempt to prove whether that was because of idiosyncrasies to do with the Sepang track or a problem with the upgrade itself, Mercedes is splitting the specification of their cars.
Russell will drive the specification with which he won in Azerbaijan, the week before Malaysia, while Antonelli will run the new spec.
Russell said: “I actually asked a question already on Friday in Sepang. At the end of the day it’s the car I’m reverting to is a car that was on pole by 0.8secs and Kimi won the race before, so it’s important to remember the context. It’s not like reverting back to a launch car.
“Given the circumstances of the grid penalty as well, it just seemed like a no-brainer. For me, unfortunately we’re not going to be fighting for a podium this weekend, it’s exceptionally unlikely, so it’s more important for us to try and understand, was Malaysia a one-off or was it the upgrade?”