Mercedes have been fined €20,000 by Bahrain stewards for tyre breach after pit mix-up but George Russell kept his three points - his first in F1 - after ultimately disappointing ninth-place finish when on course for victory
Monday 7 December 2020 11:04, UK
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has explained how a "radio failure" in the team's garage triggered the uncharacteristic confusion in the F1 world champions' pit box and started a chain of events that cost a luckless George Russell a victory and earned the team a fine.
Mercedes appeared set for another one-two in their dominant season on Sunday, but this time with the remarkable headline of the 22-year-old Russell winning his maiden grand prix just four days after being called up to sub for Lewis Hamilton after the seven-time champion tested positive for coronavirus.
The Briton was leading Valtteri Bottas by five seconds, with the next car - Sergio Perez, the eventual race winner - 42 seconds off the lead - when the Safety Car was called on lap 61 after Jack Aitken, subbing for Russell at Williams, spun and lost his front wing down the main straight.
Taking the option of a so-called 'free' stop due to their large lead, Mercedes pitted both their cars on precautionary grounds for new tyres - but the moved backfired spectacularly when Bottas' front tyres were incorrectly, and illegally, fitted to Russell's car.
Mercedes were fined €20,000 by stewards after the race as a result, although Russell kept his three points for his eventual ninth-place finish and fastest lap, his first in F1. A later puncture had dropped the Englishman down the order again just as he had recovered to second place and was chasing down Perez for the win once more.
Explaining the pit-box confusion, Wolff told Sky Sports F1: "One of the tyre crews didn't hear the call.
"We had a radio failure in the garage and when the car came in they didn't know that we had to change the tyres, or the wrong tyres, and this is why we exited with the wrong set of tyres."
Leaving the pits with a set of Bottas' front tyres, Russell had to pit again so the team could rectify the error a lap later and dropped to fifth place.
"Technical failures happen, that wasn't any human error," added Wolff.
"We need to find out, we've checked it now, we've seen it's not functioning but we don't know why. These things happen. We need to learn from it."
Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes' trackside engineering director, said: "As the safety car came out, we were calling for the crew to be ready, and for the tyres for each car to come into the pitlane.
"At the time that message was going out, another radio message for a very brief period prevented one of the key messages getting through to one set of tyre collectors. It's something that's been lurking in there and could have caught us out at any time over the past few seasons.
"The ensuing problems were all a function of this single issue and certainly not the fault of anyone in our pit-crew who have done a great job all year."
Despite the problems, Wolff defended the decision to pit both their cars in the first place.
"It was safety stop," stressed the Austrian.
"We were fine on the hard [tyre], we could have stayed out, but we had the gap and then you do these things. You can question that, but I think it's absolutely the right call."
In their verdict on the rules transgression after issuing Mercedes with the fine, stewards explained the "mitigating circumstances" that meant they chose not to issue a penalty for Russell's car directly.
"This is clearly a breach of the regulations and would normally involve a sporting penalty up to disqualification. However, in this case there are mitigating circumstances, additional to the radio issue referred to above," read the verdict.
"Firstly, the team rectified the problem within 1 lap. This involved Car 63 making another pit stop, thus dropping it further down the classification. Secondly, Car 77 [Bottas] made a pit stop to change tyres only to find that the front tyres to be fitted to it, were on Car 63 [Russell], so was sent out after considerable delay, with the tyres that were on Car 77 prior to the pit stop.
"This also impacted the final classification of Car 77.
"Thirdly, although this type of infringement is not catered for under the "3 lap tolerance" referred to in the second paragraph of Article 24.4 b) (which currently only refers to the use of tyres of differing specifications), we consider it to be similar in nature. However, the responsibility to fit tyres in compliance with the regulations, still rests with any team and thus a penalty is considered as being required.
"It is recommended that the FIA consider amending Article 24.4 b) to accommodate this type of breach when it is rectified without delay. It is noted that this type of breach has not previously been experienced in Formula One."
