The F1 sanity that left Russell with some Sakhir solace

The Formula 1 stewards at the Sakhir Grand Prix had something new to consider: a driver running two of his team-mate's tyres.

This was one of the two results of Mercedes disastrous double-stack pitstop under the race's second safety car, which cost George Russell a likely victory after he'd been sent out with medium tyres from Valtteri Bottas's allocation, and destroyed any hope of Bottas going to win as he had to head out again with the same set of hard tyres put back on his W11.

This is against article 24.2a in F1's sporting rules, which is aimed at stopping, per F1 race director Michael Masi, "if a team's run out of tyres, hypothetically, they could be using a 14th/15th set of tyres (13 sets are set out in the rules), which obviously then gives them a resultant sporting advantage".

The penalty for this infraction is disqualification from the race in question (or grid penalty if committed beforehand), but the Sakhir stewards decided against this. They explained that there were "mitigating circumstances, additional to the radio issue (which was a Russell message coming in on top of a call from Mercedes sporting director, Ron Meadows, and stopped Russell's crew from getting the call that he'd be coming in to the pits first).

The stewards noted that Mercedes had brought Russell back in the next lap - within the "3 lap tolerance" allowed in Article 24.4b, which covers drivers running tyres of mixed compounds. And this was the key to why Russell wasn't disqualified, although a penalty still had to be issued, which was a €20,000 fine.

Given there was a real chance Russell would lose his first F1 points through no fault of his own, having already lost a near certain first podium appearance to a later puncture, there was a very sensible outcome. The pitstop problem had dropped Russell to fifth in the order and left Bottas struggling home in eighth - which were additional factors in why the stewards opted not to disqualify the long-time leading Mercedes.

In essence, Russell and Mercedes had been punished enough and the Briton at least came away with something to show for his debut appearance with the Black Arrows: ninth place and the fastest lap to secure him a total of three world championship points. The stewards also recommended, as Mercedes' action to rectify the mixed-driver tyre set issue was "similar in nature" to how it would've been required to do so had Russell gone out with different compounds fitted, "that the FIA consider amending Article 24.4b to accommodate this type of breach when it is rectified without delay".

"It is noted that this type of breach has not previously been experienced in Formula 1," they added, after the rule change recommendation.

It's not hard, however, to imagine trouble stemming from this decision had Russell won the race in a last-lap move on eventual winner Sergio Perez, or if his replacement Jack Aitken had been running 11th at the flag. Racing Point and Williams surely would've been at least somewhat aggrieved to have been deprived of season-changing results. But then both do have key ties to Mercedes...

PLUS: The unseen mistake that nearly cost Perez victory in Russell's race

No matter, the situation has in fact been decided and Russell is no longer on the list of grand prix drivers to have racked up considerable starts totals without scoring. At the start of the Sakhir race, which he aced, despite being the "phase of the race that I was most nervous about", he'd been third on that chart - 22 behind leader Luca Badoer's 58. By the end of his third season with Williams in 2021 (assuming of course that pandemic situation allows the 23 currently scheduled races to take place and the team does not make the progress up the grid it is targeting) he may have been one ahead.

Russell has shown that he can handle the pressure of leading for F1's leading team - even if some small doubts remain about how the second stint Mercedes expected to complete would've turned out without the pitstop shenanigans

Yet Russell has shown his quality throughout his two years in F1 so far. He's only just lost that oft-referenced perfect qualifying record against F1 team-mates - and losing it in a pole battle with Bottas that he came close to winning isn't exactly bad - and has consistently shown his pace.

There have been mistakes at key moments - including that crash behind the safety car at Imola and slipping off the road at the 2019 German GP, giving up the place that became P10 for his team-mate Robert Kubica when the Alfa Romeo cars were penalised over their start procedures. And there was the trip through the gravel at this year's Styrian race that Russell put down to wheel-to-wheel rustiness and the poor third start at Mugello when he was running ninth.

But these have been banished by his performance as Lewis Hamilton's stand-in last weekend. Russell has shown that he can handle the pressure of leading for F1's leading team - even if some small doubts remain about how the second stint Mercedes expected to complete would've turned out without the pitstop shenanigans. Bottas was starting to close in, but he'd been kept at bay in the race's first three quarters...

Moving past another case of ultimately pointless speculation, Russell's overall performance across the second Bahrain event reinforced his class as an F1 driver. Fast, dedicated - he completed "hundreds of practice starts in our little rig that we had set up in my room" to get ready for his first grid start in the W11 - and fearless.

At the time of writing, it is still unknown if Hamilton will return a negative COVID-19 result in time to race in this weekend's Abu Dhabi season finale. But even if he does, the strict protocols being enacted in the city mean he may not be granted entry without special arrangement. So, the chances of Russell getting a second chance to show he deserves to join Mercedes full-time for 2022 seem reasonable right now.

PLUS: The risk and reward of Russell's Mercedes opportunity

The question is - can he do as good a job again? The Yas Marina track is an altogether different beast to the 2.202-mile, 11-corner (although only really four braking points) Bahrain outer loop, which makes a second Russell vs Bottas round all the more interesting. Jackie Stewart chose the 1973 Italian GP as his Race of my Life for Autosport because the Monza track layout provided a certain satisfaction by it being harder to take time out of other drivers there, whereas at a track such as the Nurburgring, he felt there would only be a handful of true masters.

Whether the Sakhir GP track made Russell look closer to Bottas, or the reverse, should theoretically be exposed this weekend - although that's an imprecise science, which explains why both drivers and Mercedes insisted even a one-off weekend shouldn't be seen as a shootout for a future drive.

But it did let Mercedes see what Russell could do - with his expected rival for the 2022 seat alongside and without the pressure of the team needing points for the championships that are already won.

At the very least, his performance last weekend has shown that Mercedes' long-term F1 future is in good hands. It just needs to provide a steering wheel built to fit them.