George Russell victim of freak Mercedes 'bug' as warning issued

George Russell was the victim of a freak Mercedes power unit 'bug' during the Japanese GP, which cost him a podium finish. 

Russell endured a frustrating race at Suzuka, where, after dropping from second off the line, he recovered to run in the position behind Oscar Piastri until he pitted on the lap the safety car was deployed due to Oliver Bearman's crash.  

This ruined his race and allowed team-mate Kimi Antonelli an effective free pit-stop to take the lead he would convert into a dominant win to seize control of the championship, whilst Russell toiled to fourth place. 

It came after battles with Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, but when locked in a battle for third with the second Ferrari, a Mercedes system glitch, triggered by Russell, prevented him from using full power.

"Had we stopped George a lap later, he would have retained the lead for the restart, as it happened, he dropped to P3 and lost a further place to Lewis when he hit the harvesting limit too early in the lap and had insufficient battery for the restart," explained Mercedes' trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin. 

"He then had another frustrating issue where a bug in the software code, triggered by a button press and a gear shift at the same time, caused the power unit to go into superclip and charge the battery, which allowed Charles to pass. 

He battled back to P4, but it was a frustrating afternoon for George.

"Clearly, there is a lot that we need to work on and understand in the next few weeks. We’ve made a great start to the season, but our competitors are closing in. 

"Happily, we have several areas of improvement, and we will make the maximum use of the gap in the calendar to develop in the places where we are not strong enough."