Toto Wolff has praised George Russell for an “unbelievable drive” to P2 in the Bahrain Grand Prix, with the Briton having to manage a range of car issues while trying to keep McLaren’s Lando Norris at bay.
After lining up in P3 on the grid, Russell overtook Charles Leclerc for second place at the start and remained as Oscar Piastri’s closest challenger throughout the race, despite being one of the only frontrunners to sport the soft tyre during the latter stages.
READ MORE: 5 Winners and 5 Losers from Bahrain – Who excelled in the heat of the Sakhir desert?
However, as well as trying to look after the softer compound right to the chequered flag, Russell faced further challenges as his W16 experienced problems including a brake-by-wire failure, a loss of GPS and DRS issues – all while being chased down by Norris.
Asked about the difficulties posed during those final laps, Wolff explained: “The brake-by-wire failed suddenly, and then it took a while to find the settings to kind of reset it. But we did that, and then, to be honest, him managing the system, coming in and out while Norris was behind him… It’s just an unbelievable drive, to be honest.
“What he did today, he secured us this podium on top of that. Taking the soft for such a long time was also great, between managing and then attacking when he needed to.
Russell had to keep a chasing Norris at bay whilst managing various car issues in Bahrain
“And I think it’s probably whoever, if you haven’t driven a race car, that has a BBW [brake-by-wire] or a conventional brake, it’s like on a road car when the power-assisted steering fails. Then imagine you have to adjust between one corner having it and the next one not having it. That was just a very good skill.”
The team boss continued: “I think on the dash we didn’t have all the things that were to be expected. And we also feared that we would lose the whole dash, which would mean no buttons, no wheels to turn any of the setting.
“And obviously he had the things… no shift lights. And he had it in the back of the mind and it didn’t take his concentration away.”
Pushed on whether the performance marked one of Russell’s greatest during his F1 career so far, Wolff responded: “I’m so bad with my memory in remembering good drives and bad drives, and I can’t even tell you the last few races, how the results were.
“Today it was just an unbelievable drive. Really, just probably considering the car was wounded, finishing in front of Norris is just really a great result.”
Wolff was full of praise for Russell’s performance in Sakhir
Despite Mercedes enjoying strong results across the opening three rounds, Wolff admitted that the team had not anticipated such a positive outcome at the Bahrain International Circuit.
“We would have expected that Bahrain would have been one of the very difficult forums for us because of the very granular, rough circuit,” he explained. “And I think at the end we qualified P2 and P4 [which became P3 and P5 after Qualifying penalties].
“We had a car that was able to be solid on the podium and that is better than we expected. So, you can call a race a success if you win, but in the circumstances, it was much better than we expected.”
With Russell splitting the McLarens in Sakhir, Wolff was also quizzed on whether he believes that the reigning Teams’ Champions are catchable.
“Well, if you look at where McLaren was last year, I think it was fourth and sixth or fifth and sixth, something like this, you can see how quickly you can turn the tide,” the Austrian said.
“Probably today we were a few tenths missing. I don’t know how we would have performed on the medium [tyre] at the end, but definitely we just need to put on our best game, see how it goes on the other tracks.”
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