{"id":28186,"date":"2025-04-17T18:26:09","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T18:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/28186\/"},"modified":"2025-04-17T18:26:09","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T18:26:09","slug":"russells-transponder-was-frazzled-and-charred-after-bahrain-grand-prix-drs-drama-%c2%b7-racefans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/28186\/","title":{"rendered":"Russell’s transponder was ‘frazzled and charred’ after Bahrain Grand Prix DRS drama \u00b7 RaceFans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mercedes has begun its investigation of the failures which occured on George Russell\u2019s<\/a> car during last weekend\u2019s Bahrain Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

Russell salvaged a second-place finish despite suffering a brake-by-wire failure. He, and other drivers around him, also had to operate their Drag Reduction Systems manually due to a timing loop problem with Russell\u2019s car.<\/p>\n

Mercedes said Russell\u2019s technical trouble struck much earlier than it may have appeared from the broadcast of the race. Although the root causes have not yet been identified, the transponder which communicates with Formula One Management\u2019s timing system was \u201cfrazzled and charred\u201d after the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably from the TV broadcast it sounded like [the fault began in] the final 10 laps,\u201d said the team\u2019s representative Bradley Lord in a video issued by Mercedes<\/a>. \u201cActually, it was from about half-distance that we had the first sign of a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve just arrived back in the factory with about 10 different suitcases of parts and items that we\u2019re bringing back including a pretty frazzled and sort of charred-looking FOM timing transponder and then some other bits of kit as well related to the brake-by-wire system,\u201d he explained. \u201cSo we haven\u2019t got root causes yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mercedes realised there was a fault with Russell\u2019s transponder when his name suddenly disappeared from second place on their timing screens.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeorge\u2019s name just plummeted down the time sheets and we were thinking okay, no, he\u2019s still on track, he\u2019s still talking on the radio so there\u2019s a timing issue here rather than something else.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat also had as a knock-on effect as, if you lose the timing transponder, you lose the part of the car that interacts with the mechanism so for activating DRS, for knowing whether you\u2019re within a second or another car it\u2019s within a second of you. We therefore had to resort to a back-up system. We talked to the FIA, we get permission to do that, and then George was effectively operating the DRS in manual mode.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another problem developed on Russell\u2019s car around the same time. \u201cWe started to have a separate but parallel problem with the brake-by-wire. That\u2019s the electronics that determine the braking force between front and the rear brakes, but particularly on the rear brakes. There\u2019s a chunk of braking that is done by the MGU-K \u2013 the electric motor on the engine \u2013 and then a chunk done by the hydraulic braking system.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we go into what we call passive mode you\u2019re just relying on those hydraulic brakes. But it changes the car\u2019s behaviour under braking and ultimately it\u2019s very, very difficult to run the car like that because you\u2019re losing a lot of braking force and you ultimately overheat those much smaller hydraulic rear brakes.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo George was battling with that. We had to do what\u2019s called a default change for him so that he could toggle in and out of that brake-by-wire when it went to passive and put it back in the active mode in those last 10 laps. I think over those last 10 laps he was making between 20 and 30 changes to that setting as he was also driving, hitting his braking points and keeping first Leclerc and then ultimately Lando behind him as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mercedes grew concerned the timing system problem could have other effects on Russell\u2019s car, such as disabling his steering wheel dash display, but these never materialised. However Russell did activate his DRS by mistake at one point, though the stewards accepted he did not do so deliberately and acted immediately to cancel any advantage he gained.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t know what further knock-on effects it might have. The big fear was that it would knock out the dashboard completely so the whole steering wheel display.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf that happens, we can continue driving because there are failsafe and back-up systems in the car that mean we can still change gear, we can still use the DRS and we can still use the radio. We have a back-up radio system in the car that isn\u2019t located on the steering wheel. It\u2019s a button down in the cockpit. That button, as it turns out, is also the manual backup for the DRS if that fails.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo George was cycling through a practice to go to the back-up radio just in case it was needed, pressed that back-up radio button and inadvertently on the back straight also opened the DRS, because it does the two things at the same time. He realised it within an instant, braked, closed the DRS and continued. That\u2019s when we heard him come on the radio.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was what the stewards looked at and investigated and ultimately decided there was no further action for it after the race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russell was \u201ckind of like an acrobat spinning plates\u201d at the end of the race, said Lord. \u201cIt\u2019s what made his drive ultimately so impressive not just to have the mental bandwidth to cope with that but also to be doing the driving, making no mistakes, fending off Lando, keeping Leclerc out of striking distance as well. It was a really incredible performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

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2025 Bahrain Grand Prix
\nBrowse all 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix articles<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercedes has begun its investigation of the failures which occured on George Russell\u2019s car during last weekend\u2019s Bahrain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[12355,4199,707,4200,9824,4859,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-28186","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-2025-bahrain-grand-prix","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-formula1","12":"tag-george-russell","13":"tag-mercedes","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114354716089966316","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}