Mercedes enjoyed a strong qualifying session in the Bahrain Grand Prix on Saturday, when George Russell finished second and the young teammate Kimi Antonelli finished fourth.
But neither of the drivers starts there.
Both Russell and Antonelli were grid criminals in one place because they do not follow the instructions of the racing director, as a result of a decision of the team during the second quarter.
Esteban Ocon Crasshed asked in the second segment of qualification, a hard shunt in the wall at bend 10 that stuck the red flag from the red flag. Before the session officially argued, both Russell and Antonelli came from their garages and were in the fast lane of Pit Row, waiting for the green flag.
However, this has violated the posted notes of the racing director earlier this week.
While the qualification continued and both Mercedes managers shot to Q3, ended in the top four, both Russell and Antonelli were called upon to meet Race stewards after the session. During the hearing, where they were accompanied by Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin, Shovlin admitted that I instruct the drivers to leave their respective garages and to stand on the Pitlane. Shovlin also admitted that he gave that instruction after he had read the message on the timing screen incorrectly. As noted in the decision of the Race offices:
“Mr Shovlin stated that he had released the instruction for the cars in the errors, which did not misinterpret the message on page 3 of the Timing screen,” estimated the Re-Star time “as a message that the current re-position time assessed.”
While Shovlin came up with the mistake, I argued that Mercedes’ decision to leave BOV drivers on the pit LAN wrongly gave this no sporty advantage, because the rest of the teams had Coul Coul completely complete complete. The Race Officaries also heard from Tim Mallyon, the Single -Single -Sports Director of the FIA, who stated that “such a movement could be a sporting advantage in the sense that it enables a team to carry out his run plan, while other teams may not be Aabel.”
Race officials agreed with that claim, given that only 11 minutes were left in Q2 when the Ocon crash took place.
Shovlin de Pleute for Clementia and Race officials found merit in this argument and noted that the “infringement was an Interink and a real error by the team for which Mr. Shovlin apologized.”
As such, grid crime was handed over to both divers in one place. Russell now starts third, with Antonelli Fifth.
You can read the full decision forts on documents 33 and 34 here.
Still a strong result for Mercedes, miss that wrong in the pits.