Two controversies involving George Russell and Mercedes, one technical and one sporting, didn't expose flaws in Formula 1’s rules, but how quickly reason is lost in the noise of reaction, Mark Hughes argues
Mercedes was at the centre of two controversies in Austria
The Austrian Grand Prix weekend was speckled with two big rule controversies, one technical, one sporting – and the second one in particular, George Russell securing pole despite having passed through a yellow flag zone, seemed to trigger big reaction from fans.
The technical controversy arose in the lead-up to the weekend and also involved Mercedes – the FIA’s insistence that it (and Red Bull) delete the additions it had made to its diffusers. In the case of the Mercedes, these included the distinctive teardrop-shaped blisters atop the diffuser. Introduced at Montreal, they energised the airflow over the top of the diffuser, lowering the air pressure behind it and thereby accelerating the flow coming through the diffuser from the underfloor. The faster that air flows, the more downforce is created. We did a column detailing it last Friday, so won’t go further into the technicalities of it than that.
But concerning the legality question, it’s important to understand how legality is defined in F1. These blisters were outside of the legality box defined in the regulations for the diffuser. Yet, when the team showed the FIA the drawings and dimensions and explained why it believed it did not violate the regulations, the FIA agreed. Hence they were fitted to the car.
In what way was the FIA convinced that these blisters were not contravening the regulations despite being outside the diffuser regulation dimension box? Simple: they weren’t part of the diffuser. How so when they sat atop the actual diffuser’s upper wall? Because they were not mounted to the diffuser. They had thin metal legality strips mounting them to a part of the car further back. So the blisters were merely diffuser-adjacent, not actually part of the diffuser.
Mercedes was told to remove the teardrop blisters on its diffuser ahead of the Austrian GP
Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/AFP via Getty
When Ferrari then pointed out the sort of devices which could be created around the back of the car using that justification, the FIA had a rethink and asked Mercedes to remove the additions before Austria. The team did so and it lost the car a potential few hundredths of a second of lap time. At no stage was the feature illegal. Although it would be if you tried to fit it now. That’s just how the system works. Teams are thinking of ways around the wording; it gets stress-tested and either accepted or the FIA’s interpretation is modified. Getting around the wording is different from breaking the wording, which is cheating.
But if some fans were angered by that, it was as nothing compared to the furore which erupted after Russell secured his pole. But what exactly had he done wrong? As he crested the hill before Rindt Curve (Turn 9, the penultimate corner), there was a solid yellow light at the marshals post up ahead, which briefly changed to green, then reverted to yellow.
Max Verstappen had crashed and hit the wall on the corner’s exit. But Russell had no way of knowing that in the split-second of the moment. All he has to guide him in this moment are the yellows, which are single, not double-waved. If they’d been the latter – as they should, in reality, have been – then there’d be no question. The lap would have to be abandoned. But they were not double. So he lifted, went from 100% to 0% throttle for a significant amount of time, during which he also dabbed the brakes twice. Then, as he sees the green light on the exit of the corner, re-accelerates. Having lifted off, he’s saved some extra electrical energy, which he now deploys fully.
Pole was key to Russell’s victory in Austria
Mercedes
The telemetry reveals he was only 0.0117sec slower through that section than on his first Q3 lap (helped by his greater deployment). But that’s not the relevant part. The track grip was ramping up massively. Charles Leclerc had just lapped 0.4sec faster than on his first run, Lando Norris 0.5sec, Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson 0.7sec. So it’s pointless comparing Russell’s speed through here to his previous lap. The relevant part is how much slower was he than he would have been? The answer to that is around 0.15sec. Which is perfectly acceptable for a single yellow.
But it should not have been a single yellow. Given that there was a crashed car in the run-off (over the brow and invisible to Russell as he approached), it should have been at least double waved yellows, possibly even a red flag. That is the fault of race direction, not of any driver. That’s quite aside from why there was briefly a green light before reverting to yellow. Something was not happening as it should have there. The choice of what lights are shown is with race control, not the flag marshals.
George Russell closed the F1 title gap to 40 points with victory in the 2026 Austrian Grand Prix, but championship leader Kimi Antonelli remained the class of the field
By
Mark Hughes
So yes, Russell went pretty quickly through the scene of a crashed car with a driver still inside it. But he had no way of knowing that was the situation. The single yellows indicated a far less dangerous situation, and that’s all he had to go on. He will know from his dash read-out how much quicker he has been on the lap up to this point than on his previous lap, know therefore that even with the lift he can still improve on that lap. To expect a driver competing for pole to have done anything else in this situation would be wholly unreasonable.
Of course, his team-mate Kimi Antonelli, running a few hundred metres ahead, did react differently. He thought he saw double-waved yellows and so abandoned the lap. But he was mistaken. The yellows were never double until after both Mercs had passed through there (in fact, the yellow switched to green just as Antonelli was passing it, before reverting to single yellow once more). The deleted times which followed for double-waved yellows were all for drivers on in-laps.
But in the way that F1 is consumed, the reactions to each of these situations of much of the fanbase is so much of our time – total fanaticism and divisiveness. Deaf to reason and nuance. That so gets in the way of understanding of reality. The complexity of F1 makes it even more vulnerable to this.
