Mercedes driver George Russell held tight to a well-earned second-place finish at the Bahrain Grand Prix despite a strange electrical failure.

Toto Wolff revealed that the Mercedes team still isn’t quite sure what went wrong, with the DRS being a particularly confusing element.

Mercedes unsure where George Russell DRS issues came from

Additional reporting from Thomas Maher

George Russell crossed the finish line at the Bahrain GP in second place, having held off a punchy Lando Norris despite the fact that his car’s electronics were slowly fading.

In the immediate post-race interview, Russell revealed the nature of his struggles behind the wheel.

“We were having all sorts of failures, and basically we did an override on the DRS,” he said.

“And on one lap, I clicked the radio button and the DRS opened. So straight away, I closed it again, backed off. Nothing gained or lost more than I [would have] gained.

“It was only open for a split second, so goes to show you the amount of issues we were having.”

It wasn’t the only issue Russell had to endure; he struggled with gear changes, with the team warning him that his dashboard may go black and that during that point, he should race as normal.

His transponder, too, was failing; it only registered his pace at the start-finish line, which wreaked havoc on the timing boards and made it challenging for third-placed Lando Norris to know exactly when to enable DRS.

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Speaking to media, including PlanetF1.com, after the race, Toto Wolff admitted that the cause of the DRS concerns are still unclear.

When asked for the origin of the concerns, he said: “We don’t know yet. Probably some wiring looms in the car, or maybe it was triggered by the failure in the exhaust system, and then it caused our system to collapse.”

He continued: “The brake-by-wire failed suddenly, and then it took a while to find the settings to reset it, but we did that.

“If you haven’t driven a race car that has a BBW or conventional brake, it’s like on a road car when the power steering fails. Then imagine you have to adjust between one corner having it and the next one not having it.

“That was just very good skill.

“And I think on the dash we didn’t have all the things that were expected, and also we feared that we would lose the whole dash, which would have meant no buttons, you know, no wheels to turn any of the settings, no shift light.”

Wolff was highly complimentary of his driver, praising his ability to cope with the issues while also staying highly competitive.

“To be honest, him managing the system while coming in and out while [keeping] Norris behind him — it’s just an unbelievable drive, to be honest, what he did today, secured us this podium, on top of that taking the soft for such a long time,” the Mercedes team boss said.

He also hailed the drive as “unbelievable.”

The improper DRS activation was investigated by the FIA but was ultimately determined not to be worth a penalty. Russell will keep his second place.

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