Did George Russell Really Get A Puncture At The Sakhir Grand Prix? | F1 2020

A series of events that occured at the Sakhir Grand Prix has kept me wondering. Firstly, George's laptimes are very consistent. For a car to suffer a puncture at that speed, you would expect at least a bigger drop-off in performance, especially when doing an extra lap on that tyre. George was losing tenths of a second, not seconds. These differences can be a factor of multiple things like driver mistakes, tyre wear, track conditions, ERS deployment modes, etc. Secondly, George's uncertainty about pitting. George is the only person driving the car and feeling every single sensation that the car is providing. Yet, he wasn't sure about pitting after knowing about the slow puncture and spending an entire extra lap with the tyre? And finally, why didn't Mercedes pit George the instant they discovered the puncture? Why wait one extra lap? Even though Bahrain Outer is short, doesn't pushing a compromised tyre for one extra lap increase the chances of it failing? All of these question marks is what made me create this video. I just wanted to offer some food for thought, which I hope can better clarify the questionable events that happened at that race. -   / p1_unfiltered