F1 star risks shock demotion after Bahrain Grand Prix podium

George Russell could lose his second place finish at the Bahrain Grand Prix, with a chance of falling off the podium entirely.

The Mercedes driver was summoned to the stewards following the fourth race of the 2025 Formula 1 season, to answer an allegation of breaching rules on DRS deployment.

Russell was having some issues with his deployment system, and appeared to open the rear wing outside of a DRS zone, when not within a second of the driver ahead of him.

Any time penalty conferred on him would drop him from second to fourth place at best, with a five or ten-second penalty pushing him down below Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc, and anything more – highly unlikely – promoting Lewis Hamilton to fourth.

Will George Russell lose his podium to a penalty?

An FIA statement read: "The driver and team representative are required to report to the Stewards at 20:45, in relation to the incident below:

"Alleged breach of Article 22.1 h) of the FIA Formula One Sporting Regulations – Alleged usage of the DRS system outside the pre-defined activation zones."

Russell spoke immediately after the race about the issue, insisting that he had gained no advantage and may have in fact lost time as a response to the automated mistake.

"We were having all sorts of failures and basically we had to do an overdrive on the DRS and on one lap I clicked the radio button and the DRS opened. So I straight away closed it again, backed off, nothing gained. I lost more than I gained, it was only open for a split second."

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