Computer glitch to blame for Mercedes F1 issue

Mercedes

Computer glitch to blame for Mercedes F1 issue

Driver error or technical mishap?

By Sheona Mountford.

Wednesday 1 April 2026 23:30

Responsibility for George Russell’s disappointing result at the Japanese Grand Prix has now been assigned, but was it down to driver error or a problem with his W17?

At Suzuka, Russell was outperformed by his teenage team-mate, as Kimi Antonelli secured his second straight race win, leaving the British driver trailing in fourth place.

That result has put Antonelli at the top of the championship standings, making him the youngest driver in history to lead the title race. While the Italian rightly receives praise, does this mean Russell should now be seen as the lesser driver?

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Antonelli benefitted from the safety car on lap 22, where he made his stop and re-emerged in first place. Russell meanwhile, struggled on the restart and slipped behind Lewis Hamilton and into fourth.

The reason for Russell's lowly position wasn't a sudden loss of his own capabilities, however, rather a bug in his W17 (of the software kind, not a cricket).

It was a software bug!

"As it happened, he dropped to P3 and lost a further place to Lewis when he hit the harvesting limit too early in the lap and had insufficient battery for the restart.

"He then had another frustrating issue where a bug in the software code, triggered by a button press and a gear shift at the same time, caused the power unit to go into superclip and charge the battery which allowed Charles to pass. He battled back to P4 but it was a frustrating afternoon for George.

"Clearly there is a lot that we need to work on and understand in the next few weeks. We’ve made a great start to the season, but our competitors are closing in.

"Happily, we have several areas of improvement and we will make the maximum use of the gap in the calendar to develop in the places where we are not strong enough."

F1 Mercedes George Russell Japanese Grand Prix Andrew Shovlin