When the Bahrain Grand Prix and George Russell raced second, the news slowly passed on its radio that different systems failed. The team director this Wolff simply said it: “The car has been injured.”
The Mercedes driver suddenly suffered a brake failure, and it took time to appear to reset the system, Wolff said. He lost GPS and experienced problems with the reduction of the pulling (DRS), which led to his racing engineer to call him the radio when he could use the system.
Fear arose that the British “lost the whole dash – which would not mean any buttons, no way to turn any settings,” Wolff added. Throughout the navigation at the final stint on a soft tire after more than 20 laps and keeping sharply behind, it will not once lose concentration. But Russell pulled out performance.
The Sunday race could have been the largest Russell Drive Formula 1, a performance that Wolff has described as an incredible ride to reporters. And while he faced an investigation after the alleged violation race, the administrators found that he had not earned any sporting advantage, which means that Russell kept his second place-round points in the season, when Mercedes does not expect to be in rivalry with the championships.
But every millisecond, every point gain, depends when the edges are so thin throughout the grid. As Wolff said Sky Sports: “I think it’s a driver who saved the result today.”
What happened to Russell’s car?
During the press conference after the race, Russell admitted that he was pleased to see a chess flag. The British basically managed in the dark (no intended pun, given that the Bahrain GP is a night race).
The Mercedes driver surpassed the initial failure of the drop in one place from the qualification and at the beginning Charles Leclercec went through and held second during the race. It did not question until the final stages, when Norris navigated around Ferraris and began to close the gap of Russell, while Russell experienced a number of problems in his car.
Everyone might have seen outwardly, but many failures have developed internally.
“It felt everything under control for a moment, and then we suddenly had a wire brake failure. So suddenly the pedal took a long time and then it disappeared,” Russell explained, which means he has to push the pedal further or shorter than usual to brake.
“I didn’t know what was going on. The steering wheel didn’t work right, so it was really hard to keep Landa behind.
Basically, the wire brake failure is when the electronic system that controls the rear brakes fails. When these faults, brakes are manually performed by the driver, rather than browsing through the system, which can make the vehicle control when braking. Wolff compared it when the power steering system fails in a road car and “imagine that you have to adapt between one corner that it has and another that doesn’t have it.”
“That was just a very good skill,” he said.
Well said, the boss 😤 the best things in life are never easy! ✊ pic.twitter.com/adovtbk0h1
-Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 (@Mercedesamgf1) 13. April 2025
Then the GPS was released. Russell suddenly disappeared from the timing screens soon after the safety car, which is a clear sign that something happened. His transponder stopped working and it did not have GPS data affected as it could use DRS. Without data, it was harder to assess the gaps – not only on its part compared to other cars, but also for the people around it, as Norris.
According to Wolff, the Lighthouse of Drs failed, which meant that Russell needs to open the system by hand. He tried “rewriting on the DRS,” Russell said, adding, “On one round I clicked on the radio button and DRS opened, so I immediately closed it, backed – nothing got.
“I lost more than I got, it was open only for a fraction of a second, so you are going to show you the amount of problems we had.”
The administrators explored the alleged violation of the DRS and stated: “Connection between the automated DRS activation system and the car failed due to the timing loop problems provided by the external party.” Hand activation was authorized.
“At that time the driver experienced a problem with the brake and other electronic problems,” the administrators said. “At that time, he was recommended to use the auxiliary button in the cockpit, which serves as a backup radio button, but also serves as a manual DRS activation button.”
The administrators confirmed what Russell shared – that when he tried to use a team radio, DRS was “randomly activated” when he navigated on one of the straights. According to telemetry administrators confirmed the following: “DRS was activated at a distance of 37 meters to a straight 700 meters. While he got 0.02 seconds, he gave up for 0.28 seconds in another corner to compensate.”
To be clear, it is a violation of sports regulations; However, no sporting advantage was obtained, so no punishment was handed over to Russell or Mercedes.
All this happened when the race was completed and McLaren, probably the fastest car on the grid so far this season, while on soft tires. Russell shared Sky Sports as he didn’t have his steering wheel data during the last stint, making him a compromised run.
“I’m not too sure how it worked,” Russell said. “I saw Charles hard behind me and saw that I went 24 laps. I thought,” Jeezi, how hell do we do? “But we did it.”
Russell may have been able to pull this ride and place him in six points from Max Verstappen in the driver’s ranking, but why these problems arose was not immediately known after the race.
“We don’t know, probably in a car or anything else,” Wolff said. “Maybe it was triggered by F1 failure, and then it caused our system to go a little bananas.”
Russell limp home with second place (Mark Thompson/Getty Images)
What does the result mean for the Mercedes season?
This season, McLaren can dominate, and Oscar Piastri spoils the second victory and Norris has one of his, but Mercedes was consistently on the front, while Russell was sometimes the closest challenge as on Sunday.
In four races – all different types of songs – Russell secured three goals on stage and brought home the third in Australia and China. This type of performance is sufficient to build confidence in the team, especially after the difficult stretch of Mercedes has experienced with an effort to find consistency in current regulations.
“That was a real kind of test for us. We knew our car liked the cold conditions and competitiveness we showed in China, and Suzuka wasn’t a big surprise,” Russell said. “But this will be a question mark – here in Bahrain. And we had another strong weekend. So it is good for the season.”
The British said Mercedes did not expect to be close to McLaren in Bahrain, on a track where many expected a woking team to prosper. But then Russell qualified the second second and teammate Kimi Antonelli fourth before the one -time grid drops, and Russell said: “The qualification in the front row was a real surprise.
“And then I saw Landa directly on my lap behind me, I thought,” He’ll fly in the distance here. “Oscar did an amazing work to control the race, but to keep Landa at bay, I was really, really pleased.”
Mercedes sits 36 points from McLaren in the designer ranking, thanks to Russell’s stage. Asked if McLaren was caught, Wolff shared that he felt that the team was missing “a few tenths” on Sunday and wanted to see how future traces developed. He showed how the tide turned over last season, while McLaren had a great driving power for several races after the sixth and eighth in Bahrain.
But when Russell asked if the silver arrows were candidates for the title, he warned of the proposal.
“I would like to say that, but I don’t think we’re honest. McLaren is too dominant right now.” And what we saw in China and Suzuka is probably their worst scenario, and they still won one victory from these two races. “
Russell added about the importance of earning moments and picking up points if possible, as in Australia and Bahrain.
When the battles are so close, it is essential to be in the right place at the right time. We saw it with Mercedes, as well as battles in the middle of the field, so far this season.
“I don’t expect it to continue many races,” Russell said, “but who knows.”
Another message: Luke Smith
(Upper photo: Images Clive Rose/Getty)
