Mercedes had a good qualifying at the Bahrain Grand Prix. George Russell finished second and Kimi Antonelli was fourth. It looked like a strong result for the team, but a few hours after the session, things changed.

The stewards looked at an incident from Q2, when there was a red flag because Esteban Ocon crashed. During the red flag, teams must wait for race control to say when the session will start again. But Mercedes sent both Russell and Antonelli into the pit lane too early, before they were allowed to.

Because of this mistake, both drivers got a penalty and were moved back one place on the starting grid. Russell will now start third instead of second, and Antonelli will start fifth instead of fourth.

This helped Charles Leclerc from Ferrari move up to second place, and Pierre Gasly from Alpine will now start in fourth. It was still a strong performance by Mercedes, but the mistake during the red flag cost them better positions.