10/12/2020
NEWS STORY
Mercedes has installed a fix following the radio miscommunication during last weekend's Sakhir Grand Prix which saw George Russell fitted with his teammate's tyres.
If Toto Wolff thought it a "colossal f*** up", one fears to think how George Russell might have described it. For when Mercedes opted to double-stack its drivers following the deployment of the Safety Car after Jack Aitken's mishap, a communications breakdown turned the race on its head and left its two drivers - who had been running 1st and 2nd - struggling to finish in the points.
Speaking in the latest video race debrief, technical boss, James Allison reveals that fix implemented in the days since the race should ensure there are no repeats.
"You have to start by understanding that the radios that the pit crew use can only hear one voice at a time," says Allison. "Although they are listening to more than one potential input source, they can only hear one input source at a time, not like a teleconference where you can have several people speaking at once.
"Right at the point where Ron was calling to the pit crew to do the double stack, George was also speaking on the radio," he continues. "For half of the people on George’s side of the garage, their radios, instead of hearing what Ron was saying the radio, had latched onto what George was saying instead.
"So, one tiny mistake, programming the radios in a way that they could override hearing this really important call from Ronnie Meadows on the pit wall is what caused all that mess.
"We are just lucky, of course, that this happened now, after a championship was settled, or maybe not in next season when everything was live and really counting in the middle of a championship fight," he admits.
Check out our Thursday gallery from Yas Island, here.