George Russell escaped punishment for accidentally opening his DRS at the Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix as “no sporting advantage” was gained.
Defending second place at the Bahrain International Circuit, Russell was combating a series of technical issues with his Mercedes W16.
One was his DRS, another communicating with the team, and when pressing an auxiliary radio button, Russell inadvertently opened DRS outside of an appropriate zone of the circuit.
“I don’t really know how that happened,” he said in parc ferme.
“It was something to do with all these failures we were having.
“As soon as I saw it opened, I backed off. I lost two tenths of a second.
“It never happened again throughout. I didn’t actually click the DRS button – I clicked another button and it opened.
“As I said, I lost a lot more than I gained – I don’t think I even gained anything because it was open for less than a second.”
Ultimately, this was the view of the stewards who decided not to impose a penalty.
The stewards’ verdict
“The connection between the automated DRS activation system and the car failed due to issues with a timing loop provided by an external party,” the stewards’ verdict began.
“Therefore the FIA authorised manual activation of the DRS in accordance with Article 22.1 h).
“At the time the driver was experiencing a brake-by-wire issue and other electronic issues.
“He was at that time advised to use an auxiliary button in the cockpit which serves as a back up radio button but also serves as a manual DRS activation button.
“On the straight between Turns 10 and 11 he tried to radio the team using this button but instead accidentally activated the DRS. The DRS was activated for a distance of 37 metres on a straight of approximately 700 metres.
“Whilst he gained 0.02 seconds, he gave up 0.28 seconds at the next corner to compensate. This was confirmed by telemetry.
“Accordingly, whilst technically a breach occurred, the Stewards decide that as there was no sporting advantage gained, no penalty is imposed”
The verdict means Russell holds onto a fine second-place finish, which involved holding Lando Norris at bay in the closing laps, despite having several technical issues.
“Yeah, it felt all under control for a moment and then suddenly we had a brake-by-wire failure,” he said.
“So suddenly the pedal was going long, and then it was going short… I didn’t know what was going on.
“The steering wheel wasn’t working properly, so it was really hard fought to keep Lando behind.
“I think one more lap, he would have got me pretty comfortably. But nevertheless, really, really pleased with P2.”
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