F1 | Sakhir GP | Mercedes' mistakes costly for both themselves and their drivers
A "collossal fuck up" from Mercedes cost Russell a potential maiden win, Bottas valuable positions, and the team a €20 000 fine
It was a tough day at the office for the Mercedes squad. The two W11 started the Sakhir GP from the front row, with Max Vertappen and Charles Leclerc right behind them. George Russell got away perfectly from his second place on the grid to jump his teammate of the day — Valtteri Bottas. He comfortably set the pace, almost three seconds ahead of the Finn, before pitting on lap 45 . Even the offset tyres’ strategy attempted by Bottas wasn’t enough to cut the lead of the young Brit, he pitted four laps later, to emerge with an eight-second gap. The race looked under control, and without a safety car triggered by the broken wing of Jack Aitken on lap 63, the race would probably have ended with a customary Mercedes’ 1-2.
Mercedes decided to pit both their cars for a set of medium tyres, with a double-stack exercise the team had successfully performed in the past. Toto Wolff explained:
"What happened is that when we called the pit crews out, they got a call on the radios and brought the right tyres out."
"One side of the garage, George's side, didn't hear the pit call.”
"We had a radio that didn't function, and then the wrong guys with the wrong tyres came out."
"We knew immediately when Valtteri didn't have his tyres, we knew that Valtteri's tyres were on George's car"
"We fitted Valtteri's old hard tyres that we just took off to the car again, and we knew we needed to pit George again."
About the puncture Russell suffered and the missed opportunity, the team principal guessed:
"The slow puncture probably came from him having to run off the line so many times in order to overtake,"
"As for the race win? I don't know. I think our planner said he would catch up to Sergio and maybe DRS would have helped us, but I'm not sure [if he would have won].
He however acknowledged the great win of Sergio Perez:
"Sergio drove a brilliant, brilliant race, and deserves the race win because we made too many mistakes, and were unlucky with the puncture."
Following Mercedes’ pitstop failure, the team was investigated by the Stewards. After the race, the FIA noted: "When car number 63 pitted for a tyre change at 21:16hrs, the team fitted on the front axle tyres allocated to car number 77.”
"Car number 63 left the pit lane and returned after one lap in order to fit a correctly allocated set of tyres. As this is not in compliance with Articles 24.2 a) and 24.3 e), I am referring this matter to the stewards for their consideration."
Mercedes was subsequently fined €20,000 but not disqualified for the tyre infringement. The Stewards deemed that there were mitigating circumstances and Mercedes reacted without delay to pit Russell again. The Briton then keeps the benefits of his maiden points in F1.
When asked about his race, Russell said:
"I've had races where I've had victories taken away from me, but twice, I couldn't believe it"
"I couldn't believe what was happening. I drove my heart out, I had the race under control, especially in the beginning, and then obviously the safety car came out, which was annoying.
"But I felt comfortable. I put some good overtakes, I was fired up, I was ready to chase Sergio to get the win back, and it would have been tight, but we would have done it.
"And then it went away from us again. So that's racing."
Despite his disappointment, Russell tried to put things in perspective, admitting nonetheless that losing when leading a race was indeed really hurtful:
"If you'd told me at the start of this weekend I would have scored some points, I'd have said right, that's going to be a pretty fantastic weekend!"
"But if you'd told me I'd be leading the race, and then ended up… argh… I don't know.
"It really hurt, honestly, it really bloody hurt when I got out of the car.
"I spoke to my parents straightaway. I know they were feeling it. They said you've got so much to be proud of. Same with Toto [Wolff] and James [Vowles] and Bono. We hugged it out.
"So hopefully I've given Toto some problems to sort out for the future. I'm happy. I'm proud."
In the end, Toto Wolff foresaw a brilliant future for his young talent:
“It’s not going to be George Russell’s last attempt to win a race, this is just the beginning of a fairy-tale that didn’t work out today and I would say a new star is born.”
Toto 💬 “It’s not going to be @GeorgeRussell63’s last attempt to win a race, this is just the beginning of a fairy-tale that didn’t work out today and I would say a new star is born.” #SakhirGP pic.twitter.com/CqZQ4O6CDE
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) December 6, 2020