Mercedes F1 Deputy Team Principal Bradley Lord reflected on a difficult 2026 Malaysia race for the team as they lacked pace to win. It was compounded by a late PU failure for George Russell, as championship leader Kimi Antonelli brought home P2.
Lord says analysis to take place on Russell’s PU problem in 2026 Malaysia F1 race
Behind the Safety Car at the end of Lap 49, George Russell started to complain about something feeling wrong with his PU. As they crossed the line to begin Lap 50, the Brit was told to pull over as a failure had occurred. He had been running in 3rd.
Speaking in a print media session post-race, Lord said more investigations will take place to find the root cause of the issue.
“He came on the radio behind the Safety Car, said PU is starting to sound funny. We saw sensors then misbehaving and it was clear we had to pull the car over and we’d had a failure of some sort.
“Still need to understand what it means for his pool because he’s not rich in low mileage power units either. That may mean we need to alter what had been our previous plan.
“But we’ll understand that in more detail in the next hours.”
Pushed on whether this means the Brit will have to take a grid penalty before they bring an ADUO upgrade, Bradley Lord conceded that is now a possibility.
“Potentially so, yeah. That’s what we need to understand.
“But yes, there may be a double whammy effect there, which for him after such a gut-wrenching blow today and it was devastating to see him have to pull off as he did. Yeah, there may be a sort of double whammy effect there that is just a really unfortunate consequence of that issue.”
Lord: Mercedes not fast enough to fight Red Bull during 2026 F1 Malaysia weekend
In qualifying on Saturday afternoon, Kimi Antonelli was P4, 0.501s behind polesitter Max Verstappen; the Italian was outqualified by both Red Bull. George Russell was down in 8th.
Although both Mercedes drivers immediately got Max Verstappen at the start as the four-time World Champion bogged down off the line, he quickly picked off Russell. He then passed Antonelli after the first Safety Car and eased away by multiple tenths per lap as the race went on.
Bradley Lord admitted Mercedes expected it to play out as it did in the 2026 F1 Malaysia race.
“It wasn’t terribly difficult. Max looked the same step ahead in the race that we’d sort of predicted beforehand and we saw that he was in qualifying as well.
“So we’ve clearly not performed at the level we would hope to be at and have been at other races here. The reasons for that could be many and varied and that’s what we need to sort of get our heads into over this evening into tomorrow and understand what we put those root causes down to.”
A confusing weekend for Mercedes at Sepang
The circuit near Kuala Lumpur is a special and important one for Mercedes thanks to their close collaboration with fuel supplier and title partner Petronas.
Ahead of FP1, Mercedes unveiled upgrades as they looked to build on their very dominant season so far. However, they were not completely successful. While the W17 was competitive in the middle sector where there was high and medium speed corners, they struggled with more drag on the straights thanks to the extra downforce, as well as that, they had problems in the low speed, with Toto Wolff explaining after qualifying about chronic understeer in Turn 2.
Bradley Lord explained after the 2026 F1 Malaysia race that work will need to be done by Mercedes to understand whether this is a one-off due to the track surface and high temperatures at Sepang or whether the upgrades have made the W17 slower.
Ferrari and Aston Martin impressing
As the Brit pointed out, some teams looked better even without upgrades for this round. Lewis Hamilton looked faster in his Ferrari compared to both Mercedes’, for example. A bad strategy call cost him a shot at P2 at least. Fernando Alonso also took advantage of the grip limited to be 8th for Aston Martin with their strong chassis in the midfield group.
“That’s probably one of the lesser question marks.
“So we know that by adding downforce, that brings with it drag and the calculation is that what you gain in the corners will outweigh what you lose down the straights. So we’ve seen what we’re expecting there. We’re seeing the benefit in the high speed corners and the medium speed. The drivers say they can feel it as well. But there’s no doubt that we’ve struggled in certain corners all weekend, particularly the slower ones.
“And what we have to unpick is whether there’s anything there linked to the update itself or whether we’re racing at very high temperatures for most of the weekend. Obviously, it was cooler today in the race and we’re racing on by far the roughest tarmac and asphalt, very open tarmac that gives the tyres a very hard time as well.”
Limitations
“And we seem to be suffering most in the places where the asphalt was at its most open and at its most broken. And that is something we’ve seen in the past at a circuit like Bahrain, which is the other comparison, I guess, to this kind of track surface.
“So there are many things to unpick. We’ve seen some teams without upgrades take a step forward this weekend. Other upgraded teams take a step forward. Teams that have upgrades perform less well than we might have expected.
“I think we’re not the only people with some questions to answer as we leave the weekend. But certainly, yeah, we’ve got to unpick what is down to what and then understand if that has any implications on how we head into Singapore and the remaining six races after that.”
