The drama: After the race, George Russell sat on a curb in the pit lane. His gaze was blank, then he let himself fall back. He has just celebrated the greatest success of his career, but also suffered the greatest defeat. Russell led the Sakhir Grand Prix for a long time, and in the end he scored at least the first points of his Formula 1 career in ninth place. Sergio Pérez won the first race of his career in motorsport premier class, but read for yourself.
The history: Due to a corona infection of world champion Lewis Hamilton, Williams driver Russell was promoted to the Mercedes. Russell is a member of the Mercedes junior program and is considered a great talent, which is why he was even given precedence over the actual substitute driver Stoffel Vandoorne. The 22-year-old had only contested three units before qualifying on Saturday, but he still drove straight to second starting position. Especially here: he was only 26 thousandths of a second missing from Mercedes veteran Valtteri Bottas. Then Mercedes Motorsport Director Toto Wolff said that the future belonged to Russell.
Getting used to: The conversion from the non-competitive Williams to the class leader among the racing cars did not go without any problems: Because Russell is more than ten centimeters taller than Hamilton, there were difficulties in adapting to the racing car. It’s like squeezing into a bathtub, Russell said on Saturday. And the technical conditions also caused problems at the beginning. After qualifying, he didn’t know how to turn off the car. When the pit crew asked to switch to “P Zero”, Russell asked: “How do I do that?”
The first act: Despite the circumstances, Russell put in an outstanding performance on Sunday. Already at the start he conceded Bottas and subsequently expanded his lead. Russell even managed to restart after a safety car phase and stayed in the lead. He, who had never finished in the top ten before, dominated the race.
The second act: On the 62nd lap, Jack Aitken, who in turn replaced Russell in the Williams, knocked off the front wing on the start-finish straight. The virtual safety car was activated and the two leading Mercedes were called into the pits one after the other. A chaos developed over the right tires, Russell got the tires from Bottas instead of his own. Bottas again had to drive on with his old tires – and wait before that. A lap later Russell was called into the pits again to put on the right slicks.
The third act: Back on the track, Russell was suddenly only fifth, behind Bottas among others. And he attacked his teammate directly again. With a spectacular maneuver, he overtook his team-mate for a race. A little later Russell had also overtaken Lance Stroll and Esteban Ocon. In second place, he was only a few seconds short of the leader Pérez. By the end of the race, Russell would have overtaken the Racing Point driver and possibly overtook him.
The fourth act: Should have, because the pit radio of the Mercedes team spoke up again. Russell had a flat tire on the left rear tire, they said. Russell had to pit again, after the stop he just yelled into the radio. Because the field was so close together on the fast track in Bahrain, Russell came back on the track in 14th place on lap 79 this time. With the fastest race lap, among other things, he worked his way up to at least ninth place.
The aftermath: After the race and the moving pictures around Russell, Mercedes boss Wolff spoke up. He spoke of a “colossal fuck up” of the team, before he had already apologized personally to Russell on the pit radio. But Wolff also found constructive words; “A star is born,” he said of the 22-year-old. If nothing unusual happens, Russell will continue to drive for Williams for now. The question that arises: how much longer?
In any case, Mercedes has to pay a fine of 20,000 euros for illegally using the tires, the race stewards decided after the race. Russell is allowed to keep his points.
The big loser: In view of Bottas’ poor performance, Wolff no longer seemed sure that he had made the right decision by extending the Finn. Bottas has already fallen short of expectations in the past few weeks, now he has been outclassed by a young star for long stretches. “You can only work with the information you have,” said Wolff when asked whether you had made the right decision to have planned with Bottas and not Russell for the coming season.
