Mercedes suffered a hydraulics failure on the W14 which forced George Russell to stop on track and miss out on valuable pre-season testing time.
Russell and team boss Toto Wolff have been crowing about the performance of their car ahead of the new season. But they suffered a significant setback on Friday afternoon when, while out on track, an error message flashed up on the Brit's steering wheel.
The hydraulics failure left him unable to change gear or use power steering, meaning he could not shift up or down from fourth gear. The Mercedes star was forced to abandon the car on track and that caused a red flag which saw the session stopped.
Replays showed that a message flashed on the racer's steering wheel while out on track. It flashed red and told Russell that the car had a "hydraulics failure" and, despite his attempts to nurse the car back to the pits, he was unable to do so.
Extra time had to be taken to get the stricken W14 safely and securely back to the Mercedes garage. Before it was moved anywhere, it was draped in a black cover so that, when lifted off the ground, other teams would not be able to take a peek at the car's floor design.
Speaking on Sky Sports commentary, former F1 racer Anthony Davidson was quick to identify that it was a hydraulics issue before replays had even shown the error message. "It would make sense that he's stuck in fourth gear because the hydraulics controls the gear shift mechanism along with the power steering," he said.
"He had no clutch and that's also controlled by hydraulics. He's got the green light on top of the car as well so it's not a hybrid issue." David Croft went on to add that it would be difficult for the team to get that fixed in time to get the car back out later in the session.
Mercedes have since confirmed that it was indeed a hydraulics issue which cause the break down. The severity of the problem is not yet known, but the team did say it was "highly unlikely" they would be able to fix the car and get it back out on track on Friday.
Mercedes had performed a rudimentary fix of the car earlier in the day, using tape on a section of the floor which had fallen off while Lewis Hamilton was behind the wheel. But it is very unlikely that the two issues are linked, as the first appeared to be simply a bodywork failure.
