Mercedes driver George Russell scored his best finish of the 2025 F1 season on Sunday at the Bahrain International Circuit. He came second to McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, with McLaren’s Lando Norris rounding up the podium.
Having started P3 and P6, Russell and Norris battled for P2 in the last 10 laps of the race. Mercedes managed to stay ahead despite technical problems with the car’s brakes, steering wheel and Drag Reduction System.
“It was really hard-fought to keep Lando behind,” Russell said. “I think one more lap and he would have got me pretty comfortably. Nevertheless, I’m really pleased with P2.”
Russell overtook Leclerc on the first corner with soft tires and started defending from Norris, who moved from P6 to P3 at the race start.
Russell boxed from P2 on Lap 14 and came out P8 with Medium tires, almost immediately overtaking Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso for P7. He recovered to P2 by Lap 26, gaining positions on track while other drivers boxed and lost positions.
Russell boxed for a second set of Softs on Lap 32 as a Safety Car was called to clean the track of debris from a minor collision at the midfield. With less than half of the 57 total laps to go, Russell had to make this set last to the end of the race, which he called “pretty audacious” on the radio.
After the safety car was called in, Piastri led off Russell whilst the Mercedes started to report various mechanical failures. Not long after, the sensor on his car switched off and showed his vehicle as stopped on the track. The error caused issues with the timing table, showing him at the bottom of the grid despite being second.
“We had some problems in the last 12 laps, including a brake-by-wire failure,” Russell explained. “When I was hitting the brakes, the pedal was inconsistent, and I had to do some resets for it to work properly again. For 10 laps in a row, going into every corner, I didn’t know whether it would be giving me the same feeling or not.
“The brake-by-wire failure wasn’t the only technical challenge we were dealing with either. There were all sorts of issues going on with the transponder and the signals going to the car. That meant that we had to manually override the DRS. At one point, I hit the radio button and saw that the DRS was open. I closed it immediately and lifted off the throttle, so we actually gave up time.”
The stewards noted his DRS violation and investigated the incident after the race. They concluded that no penalty would be applied as Russell gained no sporting advantage.
Russell is currently P4 on the Driver Standings with 63 points, six points behind Red Bull Racing defending world champion Max Verstappen.
Round 5 of the 2025 season will occur at 12 p.m. Sunday at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.
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