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How George Russell finished second in Bahrain Grand Prix with malfunctioning car

Published

11 months ago

April 14, 2025

How George Russell finished second in Bahrain Grand Prix with malfunctioning car

As the Bahrain Grand Prix unfolded and George Russell raced in second place, messages slowly came through on his radio that different systems were failing. Team principal Toto Wolff put it simply: “The car was wounded.”

The Mercedes driver suddenly suffered a brake-by-wire failure, and it took time to find the settings to reset the system, Wolff said. He lost the GPS, and he experienced onboard Drag Reduction System (DRS) issues, which led to his race engineer having to tell him over the radio when he could use the system.

The fear arose that the Briton “would lose the whole dash — which would have meant no buttons, no way to turn any of the settings,” Wolff added. All while navigating the final stint on the soft tire for over 20 laps and keeping a surging Lando Norris behind him, not once losing his concentration. But Russell pulled off the feat.

Sunday’s race might have been Russell’s greatest Formula One drive to date, a performance that Wolff described as “an unbelievable drive” to reporters. And while he did face an investigation after the race for an alleged DRS infringement, the stewards found he gained no sporting advantage, meaning Russell kept his second-place finish — a crucial points haul in a season where Mercedes doesn’t expect to be in contention for the championships.

But each millisecond, each point gain, matters when the margins are this thin throughout the grid. As Wolff said to Sky Sports, “I think it’s the driver who saved the result today.”

What happened to Russell’s car?

Russell admitted during the post-race news conference that he was pleased to see the chequered flag. The Briton had essentially driven in the dark (no pun intended, considering the Bahrain GP is a night race).

The Mercedes driver overcame the initial setback of the one-place grid drop from qualifying and passed Charles Leclerc at the start, holding onto second throughout the race. It didn’t come into question until the final stages as Norris navigated around the Ferraris and started closing the gap to Russell, all while Russell experienced a multitude of issues in his car.

All may have seemed well externally, but internally, a series of failures unfolded.

“It felt all under control for a moment, and then suddenly we had a brake-by-wire failure. So suddenly the pedal was going long, and then it was going short,” Russell explained, meaning he needed to push the pedal further or shorter than normal to get braking action.

“I didn’t know what was going on. The steering wheel wasn’t working properly, so it was really hard fought to keep Lando behind. I think one more lap, he would have got me pretty comfortably.”

A brake-by-wire failure essentially is when the electronic system that controls the rear brakes fails. When that malfunctions, the brakes are done manually by the driver rather than going through a system, which can make it harder to control the car under braking. Wolff likened it to when the power steering system fails in a road car, and to “imagine you have to adjust between one corner having it and the next one not having it.”

“That was just very good skill,” he said.

Well said, Boss 😤 The best things in life are never easy! ✊ pic.twitter.com/adOVTbK0H1
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) April 13, 2025

Then there was the GPS issue. Russell suddenly disappeared from the timing screens soon after the safety car period, a clear sign that something was wrong. His transponder stopped working, and not having that GPS data affected how he could use DRS. Without the data, it became harder to judge the gaps — not just from his side in comparison to other cars, but also for those around him, like Norris.

According to Wolff, the DRS beacon failed, which meant Russell needed to open the system manually. He tried “an override on the DRS,” Russell said, adding, “On one lap, I clicked the radio button and the DRS opened, so I straightaway closed it again, backed off — nothing gained.

“I lost more than I gained, it was only open for a split second, so kind of goes to show you the amount of issues we were having.”

The stewards did investigate the alleged DRS infringement, and they stated, “The connection between the automated DRS activation system and the car failed due to issues with a timing loop provided by an external party.” Manual activation was authorized.

“At the time, the driver was experiencing a brake-by-wire issue and other electronic issues,” said the stewards. “He was at that time advised to use an auxiliary button in the cockpit which serves as a backup radio button but also serves as a manual DRS activation button.”

The stewards confirmed what Russell had shared — that when he tried to use the team radio, DRS was “accidentally activated” when navigating one of the straights. According to the stewards, the telemetry confirmed the following: “The DRS was activated for a distance of 37 metres on a straight of approximately 700 metres. Whilst he gained 0.02 seconds, he gave up 0.28 seconds at the next corner to compensate.”

To be clear, that is a breach of the sporting regulations; however, no sporting advantage was gained so no penalty was handed to Russell or Mercedes.

All of this happened while finishing out the race and holding off a McLaren, arguably the fastest car on the grid so far this season, while on soft tires. Russell shared to Sky Sports how he didn’t have data on his steering wheel during the final stint, making it a compromised run.

“I’m not too sure how that one worked as well,” Russell said. “I saw Charles behind me on the hard and I saw 24 laps to go. I thought, ‘Jeez, how the hell are we going to make this work?’ But we did.”

Russell may have been able to pull this drive off, putting him within six points of Max Verstappen in the driver standings, but why these issues arose was unknown to Mercedes immediately post-race.

“We don’t know, probably some wiring looms in the car or anything else,” Wolff said. “Maybe it was triggered by the failure in the F1 system, and then it caused our system to go a bit bananas.”

Russell limped home with a second-place finish (Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

What does the result mean for Mercedes’ season?

McLaren may be dominating this season, with Oscar Piastri pocketing a second win and Norris having one of his own, but Mercedes has been consistently at the front, with Russell sometimes being the closest challenger, like on Sunday.

Across four races — all different types of tracks — Russell has secured three podium finishes, bringing home third in Australia and China. That type of performance is enough to build confidence within a team, particularly after the difficult stretch Mercedes has experienced with trying to find consistency in the current regulations.

“This was the real sort of test for us. We knew that our car likes the cold conditions, and the competitiveness we showed in China and Suzuka was no major surprise,” Russell said. “But this was going to be the question mark — here in Bahrain. And we’ve had another strong weekend. So it bodes well for the season.”

The Briton said Mercedes didn’t anticipate being close to McLaren in Bahrain, at a track where many expected the Woking-based team would thrive. But then Russell qualified second and teammate Kimi Antonelli fourth, before the one-place grid drops, and Russell said, “Qualifying on the front row was a real surprise.

“And then seeing Lando right up there on lap one behind me, I thought, ‘He’s going to fly off into the distance here.’ Oscar did an amazing job to control the race, but to keep Lando at bay, I was really, really pleased about.”

Mercedes sits 58 points off McLaren in the constructor standings, thanks to Russell’s podium finish. When asked if McLaren was catchable, Wolff shared that he felt the team was missing “a few tenths” on Sunday and wanted to see how future tracks unfolded. He pointed toward how the tide turned last season, with McLaren having a big momentum swing several races after finishing sixth and eighth in Bahrain.

But when Russell was asked if the Silver Arrows were title contenders, he cautioned against the suggestion.

“I’d love to say so, but I don’t think we are, to be honest. McLaren are just too dominant right now. I think this is probably going to be their peak performance — what we saw this week in Bahrain,” the 27-year-old explained. “And what we saw in China and Suzuka is probably their worst-case scenario and they still obviously got one victory from those two races.”

Russell added about the importance of capitalizing on moments and picking up points when possible, like they did in Australia and Bahrain.

When the battles are this close, being in the right place at the right time is crucial. We’ve seen that with Mercedes, as well as the battles in the midfield, so far this season.

“I don’t expect this to continue for many races to come,” Russell said, “but who knows.”

Additional reporting: Luke Smith

(Top photo: Clive Rose/Getty Images)

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Sports

Deion Sanders mourns loss of Colorado quarterback Dominiq Ponder: ‘One of my favorites’

Published

2 hours ago

March 1, 2026

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Deion Sanders mourns loss of Colorado quarterback Dominiq Ponder: ‘One of my favorites’

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Colorado Buffaloes quarterback Dominiq Ponder died this weekend, the team’s head coach Deion Sanders confirmed on Sunday with a social media post.

“God please comfort the Ponder family, friends and loved ones,” Sanders wrote on social media. “Dom was one of my favorites! He was Loved, Respected & a Born Leader. Let’s pray for all that knew him & had the opportunity to be in his presence. Lord you’re receiving a good 1. Comfort us Lord Comfort us.”

Ponder was 23 years old.

Details of Ponder’s death are not yet known.

Colorado head coach Deion Sanders watches his team warm up before an NCAA college football game against TCU Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025, in Fort Worth, Texas. (Tony Gutierrez/AP Photo)

Ponder, a 6-foot-5, 200-pound signal caller, joined the Buffaloes and “Coach Prime’s” program in 2024 after spending time at Bethune-Cookman before making his way to Boulder.

Last season, Ponder played just two games for the Buffaloes while serving in his backup role. He recorded two rush attempts and one pass attempt.

The Opa Locka, Fla., native also received tribute from a fellow quarterback with the Buffaloes, Colton Allen.

Bethune-Cookman QB Dominiq Ponder takes a snap during the Wildcats’ spring game Saturday, April 22, 2023, at Daytona Stadium. (IMAGN)

“Dom, you were a blessing to so many people,” Allen wrote on Instagram. “You had a presence about you that just made everything better. You brought so much joy to me and everyone around you. I’m grateful for every lift, every practice, every rep, every conversation we got to share. I’ll carry those with me for the rest of my life.”

Ponder was going to be a part of Colorado’s spring practices, which are set to begin on Monday. It’s unknown if Sanders will postpone the start due to Ponder’s passing.

Ponder also received a tribute from the University of Central Florida.

Colorado head coach Deion Sanders watches his players warm up before an NCAA college football game against Utah, Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025, in Salt Lake City. (Tyler Tate/AP Photo)

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“Our prayers are with Dominiq and the Ponder family along with all in the Colorado football program,” the university’s football account on X wrote.

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Scott Thompson is a sports writer for Fox News Digital.

Sports

No. 2 UCLA women dominate rival USC to finish Big Ten play undefeated

Published

3 hours ago

March 1, 2026

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No. 2 UCLA women dominate rival USC to finish Big Ten play undefeated

Sunday was “Senior Night” for the USC women’s basketball team at Galen Center, but it was the other team’s seniors who stole the show.

Gabriela Jaquez scored 14 points, Kiki Rice had 11 points and four assists and Lauren Betts had 15 rebounds and five assists as UCLA wrapped up the regular season with a 73-50 victory over its rival and finished undefeated in conference play for the first time since going 18-0 in the Pac-10 in 1998-99 under Kathy Olivier.

Having already clinched the regular-season title, UCLA became the first team to navigate the Big Ten schedule without a loss since Maryland in 2014-15.

“These are two elite programs, we knew it would be different tonight, we knew they’d come with fire,” said UCLA coach Cori Close, who improved to 9-4 against the Trojans since counterpart Lindsay Gottlieb started at USC in 2021. “We knew we’d have to do it with our defense, our rebounding and by taking care of the ball.”

It was the Bruins’ 22nd consecutive win, one shy of the record they set last season. Since their lone loss to then-No. 4 Texas on Nov. 26 in Las Vegas, they have won by 20 or more points 17 times.

Ranked second in the nation in both the Associated Press and coaches’ polls behind defending national champion Connecticut (30-0), the Bruins earned the No. 1 seed for the conference tournament in Indianapolis and got a bye into Friday’s quarterfinals.

Charlisse Leger-Walker, nicknamed “X-ray vision” by teammates, equaled her season high with 20 points for the Bruins (28-1, 18-0) while Gianna Kneepkens added 14 points and five assists.

“Anytime we play together we know we can win,” Leger-Walker said. “We did a good job looking into the scout. Every game we just think about going 1-0. People scouting us know that all five players on the court can score the ball.”

UCLA center Lauren Betts, left, controls the ball in front of USC forward Vivian Iwuchukwu during the first half Sunday.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

UCLA held USC to 27% shooting in the teams’ first meeting — a 34-point Bruins victory at Pauley Pavilion on Jan. 3 behind Betts’ 18 points. It was USC’s most lopsided loss under coach Lindsay Gottlieb. On Sunday, USC shot 39% and was only three for 19 from three-point range.

“Going undefeated [in conference] is a great step in the right direction towards what we want to accomplish,” said Jaquez, who appreciated the flowers she received before the game from USC. “I love this rivalry. It’s super fun to play against them and it was nice that they honored us too.”

UCLA jumped out to a 14-4 lead in the first five minutes and carried a 19-11 advantage into the second quarter. The Bruins widened the gap to 18 points by halftime, holding the Trojans scoreless for the last 3:08.

USC (17-12, 9-9) opened the second half on an 11-2 run but gave up 14 second-chance points and allowed 22 offensive rebounds.

UCLA guard Kiki Rice, front, and forward Angela Dugalic celebrate as USC guard Kennedy Smith walks away.

“If we get more possessions than our opponent we’re most likely going to win,” Close said. “We didn’t allow one basket on an out-of-bounds play and they lead the conference in that.”

Freshman guard Jazzy Davidson, USC’s leading scorer, got into early foul trouble but still finished with 12 points. She was held to 10 points on four-for-15 shooting in the first meeting.

“It was a great crowd, we were in the fight but we didn’t rebound or shoot well enough,” Gottlieb said. “We wanted to keep them out of our paint. We swarmed Betts, double-teamed her and got it out of her hands but other people scored.”

Londynn Jones, who spent three seasons in Westwood (playing in 108 straight games) before transferring to USC for her senior year, was held to six points in the team’s first meeting and nine points (on four-of-10 shooting) in the rematch. The Trojans’ other senior, Kara Dunn, was held scoreless in the first half and finished with eight points.

“I love Londynn,” Close said. “We think she looks better in blue, but we love her and I told her that. I appreciate all she gave to our programs.”

Asked if this is the best team she has ever coached, Close had a one-word answer.

“Yes.”

Sports

Israeli national gymnastics team suspends all activities after Iranian counter-attack

Published

15 hours ago

March 1, 2026

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Israeli national gymnastics team suspends all activities after Iranian counter-attack

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Israel’s national gymnastics team has suspended all training and team activities amid the recent Iranian counter-attack on the country following the U.S.-assisted strikes on Iran.

The Israel Gymnastics Federation (IGF) provided a statement to Fox News Digital announcing the violence has caused “unavoidable disruptions.”

“The current security situation in our region has resulted in unavoidable disruptions to our regular training schedule and has created significant uncertainty regarding the national teams’ professional plans, particularly as we are at the outset of the international season,” the statement read.

“At this time, all training activities have been temporarily suspended, pending approval from the relevant authorities to safely resume operations. Naturally, the suspension of training and the closure of airspace are causing considerable stress and concern. However, the safety and well-being of our gymnasts and professional staff remain our highest priority. We sincerely hope for safer and calmer days ahead, when we can focus solely on sport.”

A source within the team told Fox News Digital on Saturday that the gymnasts have been moving between bomb shelters since Iran’s counterstrikes began.

Israel’s gymnastics team is considered one of nation’s strongest Olympic programs alongside its Judo and sailing teams. The team is only a week removed from a successful trip at the Artistic Gymnastics World Cup in Germany, where the country’s star Artem Dolgopyat won the gold medal in floor gymnastics.

Now, the team will have to seek safety until the attacks are over.

The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem has directed all U.S. government employees and their family members to continue to shelter in place either in or near their residences as Iran continues to fire missiles at Israel.

Additionally, the embassy announced that due to the security situation, it would be closed on March 2, and did not give an estimate on when it would be reopening. The closure includes consular sections in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

The embassy also said it is “not in a position at this time to evacuate or directly assist Americans in departing Israel.” It noted that Ben Gurion Airport remains closed and there there are neither commercial nor charter flights operating from the airport.

On Friday, ahead of the launch of Operation Epic Fury, the embassy gave all non-essential workers permission to leave Israel, with reports that U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee urged those looking to leave to do so as soon as possible.

Iranian airstrikes killed at least eight Israelis on Sunday as Tehran’s latest missile barrage landed just miles from Jerusalem.

The strikes landed in the Israeli city of Beit Shemesh. Initial reports said four people were killed when missiles landed in a residential area on Sunday, but that death toll rose to eight, according to Israel’s national emergency service.

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Iran’s military has carried out counterattacks against Israel and U.S. bases in the Middle East after a joint U.S.-Israeli strike killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday.

The strikes also killed several other top Iranian leaders, including the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

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Jackson Thompson is a sports reporter for Fox News Digital covering critical political and cultural issues in sports, with an investigative lens. Jackson’s reporting has been cited in federal government actions related to the enforcement of Title IX, and in legacy media outlets including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Associated Press and ESPN.com.