Qualifying in China went anything but smoothly for George Russell after he suffered a front-wing breakage in Q2 and then briefly halted on track at Turn 5 during Q3. Russell had won the earlier sprint race from pole position but looked far less assured during what proved to be a fraught qualifying session.
Mercedes says it is still investigating the cause of the issue which caused Russell's car to go into anti-stall mode shortly after leaving the garage, halt on track, and then remain stuck in first gear after he got it started again. With time ticking away, the team essentially had to resort to the time-honoured IT department strategy of turning the car off and then back on again: running through various default settings, swapping the steering wheel and effecting a reset.
