Mercedes will have to wait a few months to find out exactly what caused the failure that prematurely ended George Russell’s race at the Formula 1 Canadian GP. The delay in the investigation worries the team, which still does not have a definitive explanation for the problem and risks facing a similar situation in the upcoming stages.
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The incident happened when Russell was battling for the lead of the race with his teammate, Kimi Antonelli. After an intense duel in the early laps, the Briton was caught off guard by a failure in the ERS system of his W17, which forced him to retire from the race after going off track and stopping on the grass.
This problem represented another reliability setback for Mercedes. In the previous round, in Miami, Antonelli had already faced a battery-related defect during a practice session, making this the second technical incident for the team in consecutive races.
The team’s deputy director, Bradley Lord, stated that Russell had no responsibility for the retirement and highlighted the driver’s performance throughout the weekend: “It was not George’s fault in any way. He drove brilliantly all weekend and I believe he would have been a very deserving winner of the GP after securing two pole positions and winning the Sprint race,” Lord said on the Nu Silver Arrows radio program.
According to the director, the failure occurred suddenly as Russell was approaching turn 8: “There was a sudden shutdown of the ERS system in the car as he was reaching turn 8, and this also caused considerable damage afterwards. We recovered the car and managed to remove the module,” he said.
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Although already in possession of the component, Mercedes is still far from obtaining definitive answers. The executive revealed that the part will need to undergo special safety procedures in Canada before being sent to the United Kingdom for a complete analysis.
“It had to go through some unusual safety procedures and then will have to be transported to the UK. Therefore, it will take several months until the equipment returns. We need to deeply analyze the data to understand exactly what happened and find out how to prevent the problem from recurring in other modules in the future,” he added.
The delay puts the team in a delicate position. Without identifying the root cause of the failure, Mercedes remains without guarantees that the defect will not happen again, precisely at a moment in the season when its drivers are involved in an internal battle for important results in Formula 1.
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