Mercedes yet to understand mystery problem that nearly ruined George Russell’s qualifying

March 14, 2026

Qualifying in China went anything but smoothly for George Russell after he suffered a front-wing breakage in Q2 and then briefly halted on track at Turn 5 during Q3. Russell had won the earlier sprint race from pole position but looked far less assured during what proved to be a fraught qualifying session.

Mercedes says it is still investigating the cause of the issue which caused Russell’s car to go into anti-stall mode shortly after leaving the garage, halt on track, and then remain stuck in first gear after he got it started again. With time ticking away, the team essentially had to resort to the time-honoured IT department strategy of turning the car off and then back on again: running through various default settings, swapping the steering wheel and effecting a reset.

When the car was fired up again it was still stuck in first gear, but another reset enabled it to drop into neutral and engage gears normally again. Russell departed the garage with just over two minutes on the clock and managed to place his Mercedes second on the grid, 0.222s off team-mate Kimi Antonelli.

“It was just a crazy session from the end of Q2,” said Russell.

“The front wing broke and the team weren’t sure if it had broken or not. I was pretty convinced it had, and there was a bit of stress around that and changing the front wing.

“And then as soon as I went out on the track, I could tell something wasn’t right, stopping on the track, trying to restart the car. It didn’t restart. Then it started later, got back and couldn’t shift gears.

“And then obviously we just made it on track with seconds to spare. So really, really happy to be sat here right now because I could easily have been down in P10 without a time on the board.”

George Russell admitted he was lucky to be on the front row alongside team-mate Antonelli

Photo by: Dom Gibbons / Formula 1 via Getty Images

Russell’s late emergence from the garage meant he had only the out-lap in which to prepare for his timed lap.

“It was as good as I could have achieved, but I had no battery start to my lap and my tyres were cold,” he explained.

“But I’m very grateful to be sitting here right now. It was more a case of getting a time on the board.

“I knew Kimi’s been really strong and things were far from optimised my side. So it was more a case of get the car across the line and make sure I’m starting in a sensible position.

“P2 was much better than I expected when I started the lap with no battery and no tyre temperature – I was expecting to be further down the order.

“So as I said, just really glad to be here.”