George Russell shouted "f**king hell" over Mercedes' team radio during the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia after being told by senior race engineer Marcus Dudley to stop his car because of a power-unit failure.
After winning the Azerbaijan Grand Prix last time out, his first race win in three months, Russell was on course for a podium finish at Sepang with his team-mate and championship leader, Kimi Antonelli, in second behind Max Verstappen.
Retirement and Championship Impact
However, his retirement behind the safety car after completing 49 laps left him classified 20th as one of three retirements - Alex Albon and Valtteri Bottas being the others - and with a third 'Did Not Finish' of the season, like Belgian and Canadian Grands Prix.
As a result, Antonelli extended his championship lead by 18 points, from 66 to 84, with seven race weekends left, and Lewis Hamilton gained 15 points on his fellow Brit and is now just 22 points behind in third, with his Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc also now 12 points closer to Russell for a gap of 45.
Radio Exchange Details
In untelevised team radio footage, Russell initially asked Dudley when they would be racing again, saying, "Is the safety car going to go in or what?" His engineer answered: "I think it's going to be one more lap."
The Brit then said: "Check PU, something feels weird. PU hot, I think PU's broken." Dudley initially replied: "Just try and pull out into some clear air" before then adding: "OK, we need to stop the car, stop the car."
That request unsurprisingly did not go down well with Russell, who responded: "Argh, f**king hell! Argh!" Dudley confirmed: "So stop and switch off," before concluding: "Car is safe. Sorry about that."
Russell's Reaction
Speaking afterwards, Russell said it was "very disappointing". On the race up to that point, he said: "It was the right strategy, solid start to the race, the podium looked very certain."
Then, obviously, the power unit issue was very disappointing." However, the Brit did not blame being behind the safety car for the power unit getting hot, saying: "No, I don't think so, obviously, we don't know, there was just a sudden failure."
The power units of several cars with Ferrari engines affected the first formation lap, forcing the FIA to issue a software update to the teams before racing began. Asked about what happened, Russell said: "I can't really comment on it because I don't know exactly what the issue [was]."
It's all just so complicated. The power units are exceptionally complicated. The more complicated you make things, the more there is to go wrong, so that is obviously something we need to bear in mind for the future."
