Bizarre Mistake In Qualifying Earned Both Of Mercedes' Cars Penalties

Mercedes was one of the standout teams in qualifying ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix on Saturday, but a bizarre mistake in the pitlane is going to cost both of their drivers in the race on Sunday.

Pretty much all weekend long, it looked like it was McLaren's weekend. They've had the best car all season long, and both of their drivers — Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri — seem to be on top of it.

After that thought? The pecking order is a bit less clear.

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One team that has looked solid at times so far this Formula 1 season, including this weekend, was Mercedes, with both George Russell and rookie Kimi Antonelli getting some great laps down in qualifying.

Russell put his car on the front row in P2 alongside polesitter Piastri, while Antonelli finished just over two tenths of a second behind him in P4, with both silver Arrows sandwiching Ferrari's Charles Leclerc in P3.

But there was a bit of a problem.

Early in Q2, Haas' Esteban Ocon had a big crash that ended his session early and brought out a red flag.

Fortunately, he was alright, but this threw a serious wrench into qualifying, especially if teams wanted to get multiple flying laps under their belt.

It was going to be important to get out on track quickly to get a lap under your belt, and Mercedes was the first team at the pit exit.

However, they were too early, something the stewards picked up on right away.

It turns out that both Mercedes drivers left their garages early despite the red flag conditions. This earned both Mercedes drivers a one-place grid drop, meaning Russell will start P3 while Antonelli will start P5.

How does that happen?

Well, according to Autosport, we know because Mercedes' head of trackside engineering Andrew Shovlin admitted that he had incorrectly misread a message from race-control about an estimated re-starting time for the session, thinking instead that it was the actual re-starting time.

The stewards decided to limit the penalty to one place since it was a legitimate mistake.

Still, with all of the technology involved in F1, it's amazing that one person misreading a screen can prove so costly.