Toto Wolff reveals extent of George Russell's Mercedes W16 troubles

George Russell was under investigation for opening his DRS outside of the DRS zone amid multiple issues on the Mercedes W16.

Mercedes chief Toto Wolff has revealed further details behind what happened to George Russell's W16 after a troublesome Bahrain Grand Prix.

Russell was investigated by the FIA stewards after accidentally opening the DRS outside of the DRS zone due to countless issues with his car. Despite this, Wolff pointed out the incredible drive the British driver completed under these circumstances and revealed precedent for a similar case in 2018 which resulted in no further action.

While speaking to Motorsport.com and other media following the race, Wolff explained:

"The brake-by-wire failed suddenly, and then it took a while to find the settings to kind of reset it. But we did that, and then, to be honest, him managing the system coming in and out while having Norris behind him. It's just an unbelievable drive, to be honest.

"What he did today. He secured this podium on top of that. Taking the soft for such a long time was also created between managing and then attacking when he needed to. And I think it's probably whoever, if you haven't driven a race car that has a BBW or conventional brake, it's like on a road car when the power assisted steering fails.

"And then imagine you have to adjust between one corner having it and the next one not having it, that was just a very good skill."

When asked to clarify if Russell lost the brake-by-wire, GPS, on-board, and/or DRS, Wolff confirmed:

"The whole lot.

George Russell, Mercedes

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

"And I think on the dash we didn't have all the things that we expected, and we also feared that we would lose the whole dash, which would have meant no buttons, no ways to run any of the settings and obviously he had it in the shift lights, and he had it in the back of his mind and it didn't take his concentration away."

Noting the now-closed investigation into Russell for opening the DRS outside of the DRS zone, Wolff explained that there is precedent for similar incidents resulting in 'no further action.'

"It has happened before back in 2018," he explained.

"There have been examples of needing to manually override and inadvertently opening being no further action. It doesn't mean that's the case here, but there are precedents for it.

“It opened and closed. There wasn’t any benefit. The system failed and we hope it will be alright.

"We don't know the [cause] yet. Maybe some wiring looms in the car, or maybe it was triggered by the F1 system failure and it caused our system to go bananas."

It was confirmed that Russell will not be penalised for this.

"The connection between the automated DRS activation system and the car failed due to issues with a timing loop provided by an external party. Therefore the FIA authorised manual activation of the DRS in accordance with Article 22.1 h)," the official FIA document read.

"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."