Oscar Piastri's crash on the way to the Australian Grand Prix grid leaves a gap in fifth place on the starting grid for the 2026 Formula 1 opener.
The home favourite lost control of his McLaren at Turn 4 on his sighting lap and sustained suspension damage in the subsequent impact with the wall.
He will therefore sit out the Melbourne race and his fifth place slot on the grid will be unoccupied.
That will be one of two empty grid slots as Audi's Nico Hulkenberg suffered a technical problem before the race.
The main drama over the starting line-up immediately after qualifying had been whether Mercedes would keep its front row sweep, but ultimately Kimi Antonelli escaped a penalty for being released in an unsafe condition.
Antonelli drove out onto the track with a cooling fan still attached during qualifying, and it came apart and off as he navigated the first two corner.
One of the pieces was then struck by Lando Norris's McLaren, which sustained minor damage.
Mercedes explained to the stewards that the oversight had been caused by a change in the "division of labour" within the team's garage, a legacy of intensive repairs on Antonelli's car after his crash in practice earlier.
"Usually, a separate team member would have responsibility for inserting and removing each fan but the need to address legacy issues from the earlier incident during the session meant that the team member responsible for the fan on that side of the car was occupied on another task and the removal of the fan before the car was released from the garage was missed," the stewards explained.
Mercedes was assessed a €7,500 fine but no sporting penalty.
Much further down the field, Max Verstappen, Carlos Sainz and Lance Stroll were all granted permission to take the start despite no time set in qualifying.
1 George Russell (Mercedes)
2 Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes)
3 Isack Hadjar (Red Bull)
4 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)
5 n/a
6 Lando Norris (McLaren)
7 Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari)
8 Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls)
9 Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls)
10 Gabriel Bortoleto (Audi)
11 n/a
12 Ollie Bearman (Haas)
13 Esteban Ocon (Haas)
14 Pierre Gasly (Alpine)
15 Alex Albon (Williams)
16 Franco Colapinto (Alpine)
17 Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin)
18 Sergio Perez (Cadillac)
19 Valtteri Bottas (Cadillac)
20 Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
21 Carlos Sainz (Williams)
22 Lance Stroll (Aston Martin)
DNS Oscar Piastri (McLaren)
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