How One Radio Error Ruined Mercedes' Race

A pitstop failure that Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolf described as a "colossal f*** up" in a post-race interview with Sky Sports, contributed to George Russell loosing out on his first race win and an almost certain 1-2 finish for the team. So, what exactly caused the top team on the grid to make such an uncharacteristic mistake?

Photo by Steven Tee via Motorsport Images/LAT Images

Mercedes Double stacks their drivers in a disastrous pit stop

On lap 61, Williams driver Jack Aitken spun into the wall at the exit of the final corner, bringing out the safety car. Creating the perfect opportunity to make a pitstop with minimal loss of track position, especially when race leader George Russell was 42 seconds ahead of third place Sergio Perez.

Photo by Mark Sutton via Motorsport Images/LAT Images

The safety car is deployed after Jack Aitken collided with the wall exiting the final corner

Mercedes called in both of their drivers for a "double stack" pit stop, where both drivers make a pit stop on the same lap one after the other. When George Russell arrived in the pit box, there was a bit of a scramble but he was sent out before too much time was lost. As he drove off, the crew realized that they had put two of his tires and two tires meant for his teammate on the car. Not only was this a €20,000 fine for an illegal set of tires; it meant that when Russell's teammate Valtteri Bottas pulled into the pit box, the team only had two of his tires. After sitting stationary for what felt like ages, the crew chose the "least worst option," re-fitted his old tires and sent him back into the race. To make the situation worse, Mercedes had to bring Russell back into the pits to fit the correct tires to avoid being given a penalty.

Photo by Steve Erthington via Motorsport Images/LAT Images

Sporting director Ron Meadows talks to Team principal after the Sakhir GP

All of this was a direct result of one small radio malfunction. James Allison, the technical director of Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula 1 team, explained the issue thoroughly in a video released by the team. In simplified terms, the team radios are a single channel communication system, just like a standard 2-way radio. The crew can only hear one channel at a time. When a pit stop is called, the crew receives instructions from their boss, Ron Meadows. When he is not speaking, the crew's radios are scanning the driver communications. In this particular instance, half of the crew's radios were still locked on to communication from George Russell and they missed the communication from Ron Meadows. This meant that only half of Russell's tires were ready when he pulled into the pit box.

"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 tire collectors. It's something that's been lurking in there and could have caught us out at any time over the past few seasons." - Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes' trackside engineering director

"We're just lucky, of course, that this happened now, after the championship was settled. And maybe not in next season where everything is really counting in the middle of a championship fight." - James Allison, Mercedes' technical director

"We had a radio failure in the garage and when the car came in they didn't know that we had to change the tires, or the wrong tires, and this is why we exited with the wrong set of tires... These things happen. We need to learn from it." - Toto Wolf, Mercedes' team principal/CEO

This goes to show that every single moving part in a Formula 1 team is absolutely essential. All it takes is one small issue or error and the race is lost.

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