“Mystery” cooling fault cost Mercedes 15 seconds in Bahrain GP

George Russell believes the cooling fault which compromised Mercedes’ performance in the Bahrain Grand Prix cost them at least 15 seconds.

He fell from third on the grid to finish fifth in the season-opening race, 46 seconds behind winner Max Verstappen. Both Mercedes drivers had to slow down to cool their engines, which meant their tyres fell out of the operating window, costing them more time.

Russell therefore believes the car’s potential is much higher than they showed in Bahrain. “I think when we saw the pace on FP2, that was genuine,” he said. The team’s cars headed that session, Lewis Hamilton leading Russell. “Probably not everybody turned up [their engines] but we were genuinely fast.

“Then in the race we had some really big cooling issues that caught us by surprise. We know there was at least a 15 second loss just in the battery and the power.

“Probably more after you consider the effect it had on the tyres – just an extra couple of seconds in stint one, when I had Checo [Perez] behind me it would have been pretty handy. So I think we would have been in the fight for P2 for the podium with Checo and Carlos. But definitely we didn’t show our true potential.”

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The team’s technical director James Allison said their cooling problem was “the biggest unanswered mystery from the weekend.” The team went into the race confident in their cooling simulations having spent three days testing at the Bahrain International Circuit the previous week.

George Russell, Mercedes, Jeddah Corniche Circuit, 2024 — “We didn’t show our true potential” – Russell

“We were substantially hotter in the race than we expected to be,” he explained in a video released by the team. “It’s always something of a gamble choosing your cooling level for a given race weekend because you’re having to take a bet on free practice running, what the weather is going to be like on a Sunday. Normally you’re also making a few corrections for different power levels and, other things that can vary between the race and when you’re doing your practices.

“This particular weekend was one of the weekends where we had to make the fewest guesses possible. Since we’d already run this cooling level loads of times in winter testing, we’d already run these power levels in winter testing as well as free practice. The temperature that we got on race day was incredibly close to what we predicted it would be, and therefore we had all of the circumstances to make an accurate prediction for where the temperatures would be.

“The fact that we got it wrong by more than one or two degrees is extremely unusual and quite punishing, because once the cars are above the limit that the engine guys will guarantee the engine to we just have to back off the car.

“We have to back off the throttle at the end of the straights, we have to turn down some of the modes of the engine just to make them survive. That just robs you of lap time, it robs you of tyre temperature, and it just ruins your race effectively.”

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However Allison is confident the W15 “can be more competitive” at upcoming tracks. “We absolutely didn’t get the best from the car in Bahrain,” he said.

“I hope sincerely that we will deliver a car that has the correct cooling level. I hope that we will get the qualifying and race balance in a place where the drivers are complimentary about its sweet handling rather than being rather critical about it being difficult to manhandle around the corners.

“I’m looking forward to seeing, whether we can make the shift from a very rear limited track, a track that’s very traditionally rear limited, like Bahrain to a track like Jeddah, which asks more questions on the front axle. It is a high-energy track where you’re definitely having to look after both front and rear axles in a range of really quite daunting high speed corners. So I’m just looking for a clean weekend.”

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