Toto Wolff Confirms Reason Behind Russell's Retirement

"Russell suffered a power unit failure; it wasn't triggered by the safety car, though we haven't pinpointed the exact issue yet," Wolff stated shortly after the Bahrain Grand Prix. "I'm very angry, and I'm not at all happy with Mercedes' performance.

"First of all, we lacked the pace we had hoped for, and we have a lot of work ahead of us to get back to the front.

"Then, the race itself. Considering the battle with Lewis as well, everything went against us. We had built a solid gap, and then came a Virtual Safety Car followed by two Safety Cars—we couldn't have had worse luck.

"To make matters worse, a power unit failure just a few laps from the finish is devastating for his championship hopes and hurts our tally in the constructors' standings. This has been one of my worst races in Formula 1."