The Russell Bug
On Thursday of the Hungarian Grand Prix, Mercedes announced that it had found “a hidden element” in the code of George Russell‘s power unit software and had provided a fix to resolve it. In short, computer engineering matters that had nothing to do with the English driver’s driving style, as Russell himself had emphasized for days.
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George Breathes a Sigh of Relief
To journalists in the Hungaroring paddock, Russell confided: “This takes a huge weight off my shoulders. But even while driving, I’m honest. During Friday at Silverstone, but also Saturday at Spa, I was only thinking about how I had to drive to make the power unit go faster on the straight, how to accelerate, how to use the gears, or how early I had to apply the throttle. The data said that was the cause, but in the end, it wasn’t true. All that effort to optimize my driving with a new technique was in vain. I can’t wait to focus solely on driving fast again”.
Russell tried to explain what it was about, but the impression is that a computer science degree is needed: “There were incorrectly calibrated numbers. The hardware wasn’t wrong. There were two problems at Spa and the power delivery was not optimal during the lap. Besides this, there was another problem related to this calibration. Now we know which numbers were potentially incorrect. We can remedy this by recalibrating everything to ensure the power unit can reach its full potential”.
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Spa’s Fiery Team Radio
Russell was then asked to revisit the team radio from the first lap of the Belgian GP: “We are all in the same boat and we know among ourselves what happened at Spa – and we had already seen the first signs at Silverstone. All of this is not up to the standards we want to achieve as a team. Then, of course, I ended up in the gravel and the emotions were quite intense, especially considering the events that had happened up to that point”.
