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As the Bahrain Grand Prix unfolded and George Russell raced in second place, messages slowly came through on his radio that different systems were failing. Team principal Toto Wolff put it simply: “The car was wounded.”
The Mercedes driver suddenly suffered a brake-by-wire failure, and it took time to find the settings to reset the system, Wolff said. He lost the GPS, and he experienced onboard Drag Reduction System (DRS) issues, which led to his race engineer having to tell him over the radio when he could use the system.
The fear arose that the Briton “would lose the whole dash — which would have meant no buttons, no way to turn any of the settings,” Wolff added. All while navigating the final stint on the soft tire for over 20 laps and keeping a surging Lando Norris behind him, not once losing his concentration. But Russell pulled off the feat.
Sunday’s race might have been Russell’s greatest Formula One drive to date, a performance that Wolff described as “an unbelievable drive” to reporters. And while he did face an investigation after the race for an alleged DRS infringement, the stewards found he gained no sporting advantage, meaning Russell kept his second-place finish — a crucial points haul in a season where Mercedes doesn’t expect to be in contention for the championships.
But each millisecond, each point gain, matters when the margins are this thin throughout the grid. As Wolff said to Sky Sports, “I think it’s the driver who saved the result today.”
Russell admitted during the post-race news conference that he was pleased to see the chequered flag. The Mercedes driver overcame the initial setback of the one-place grid drop from qualifying and passed Charles Leclerc at the start, holding onto second throughout the race. It didn’t come into question until the final stages as Norris navigated around the Ferraris and started closing the gap to Russell, all while Russell experienced a multitude of issues in his car.
All may have seemed well externally, but internally, a series of failures unfolded.
“Because we were behind Lando, we were kind of off the pace by that stage, but at least we were holding a steady gap back to Charles, which was a good thing,” Russell said.
Russell may have been able to pull this drive off, putting him within six points of Max Verstappen in the driver standings, but why these issues arose was unknown to Mercedes immediately post-race.
“Normally, you wouldn’t lose a gearbox or a brake-by-wire system from one lap to the next, so there was something going on that we could get to the bottom of, which we will do,” Wolff said.
Wolff also praised the work of the team, saying: “Everybody did an incredible job to get the car to the grid, and then to keep adjusting it during the race, to get the best out of it. It’s the team effort, driver and team together, that made this result possible.”
Russell is considering the possibility of driving Formula One cars for up to 15 years, indicating a long-term commitment to the sport.
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