Mercedes makes confession after double penalty wrecks George Russell's F1 Monaco GP

The Mercedes Formula 1 team has taken responsibility for the pit stop blunder that led to George Russell’s race-ruining drive-through penalty at the Monaco Grand Prix.

Russell was hit with two penalties that wrecked his race and meant he came away from Monaco without any points, leaving him third in the championship and 68 points behind his team-mate and title rival Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

The 28-year-old Briton was initially hit with a five-second penalty for pit lane speeding. But when Russell failed to serve the penalty correctly because Mercedes immediately began servicing his car when he pitted under a late-race safety car, the punishment was upgraded to a drive-through penalty.

Russell, who would have likely finished inside the top five without the penalty, subsequently dropped outside of the points and was classified 13th in the final classification. 

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff held up his hands to admit that not serving the penalty properly was “clearly our mistake”.

“I'm not quite sure what the reason was for the penalty and for the many other penalties, whether it's cutting [pitlane entry] and then obviously the pitlane time is too quick, because there will have been a dozen pitlane speeding incidents,” Wolff told media including Crash.net.

“Clearly our mistake. We need to look at our communication, whether we actually expected him to come in, because I think what I remember is about staying out and not coming in. But nevertheless, you've got to be on it to hold him, and we didn’t.”

After suffering the latest setback in his quest to become world champion, Russell said he is left “beyond frustration” following another nightmare weekend.

“I got the drive-through because there was a lot of confusion last minute. I was meant to be staying on track, but then the FIA pulled the cars through pitlane,” Russell explained.

“I was asking the team, ‘Am I stopping for tyres or not?’; I didn't get an answer, but I saw my set of tyres there. Everything just happened too quick and I guess the mechanic didn't get the message that they had to leave the car for five seconds.

“Then I was on the radio saying I'm willing to serve the penalty in the next lap, because I had a 20-second gap to Gasly behind me. But the rules say we didn't serve the penalty correctly… and the punishment is a drive-through. With the software glitch, I probably gained one-tenth of a second in the whole pitlane and lost 13 positions, so…”

Mercedes overrule Russell

Radio communications between Russell and his team revealed Mercedes believed he had correctly served the five-second time penalty.

“If we’re coming through the pit lane, consider if I’ve got the gap to do the stop-and-go. The five seconds,” Russell said.

Russell’s race engineer, Marcus Dudley, replied: “So we were stationary for over five seconds, George, so we’ll wait for the update on race control.”

Russell responds: “Just ask if Kimi just keeps the pace up on the delta, I’ve got the gap behind me to do it.”

Dudley then says: “We will be passing through the pit lane,” to which Russell asks: “Do you copy what I say here, mate?”

Dudley replies: “I do, I do. I copy.”

Russell was then told not to stop in his pit box when the field passed through the pit lane.

The stewards did not agree with Mercedes and ultimately penalised Russell for a second time.