Mercedes F1 Team Hit By Global CrowdStrike Outage

Photo: Bryn Lennon – Formula 1 (Getty Images)

Formula 1 isn’t immune to Friday’s global technology outage that ground airports to a halt and hampered most forms of commerce involving a computer operated by Windows. Cybersecurity giant Crowdstrike said that a faulty software update caused the mass calamity. Crowdstrike also has a massive presence in motorsport, including partnering with the Mercedes F1 team.

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The world championship is set to be contested at the Hungarian Grand Prix this weekend outside of Budapest. All eyes were on the Mercedes pit wall at the Hungaroring as the monitors for the team’s trackside computers displayed a ‘blue screen of death,’ the telltale sign of a critical Windows error.

However, the eight-time constructors’ champions were still able to get its car prepared for Lewis Hamilton and George Russell to participate in Free Practice 1 on Friday morning. A team spokesperson told PlanetF1, “We have been working through the morning with our partners to ensure no impact on track running. It has required some fixes to be applied but that’s all proceeding smoothly.” Team personnel had to manually address each individual computer on-site to get back up and running.

The cybersecurity company has supplied Mercedes since 2019, but has even closer ties to racing. George Kurtz, Crowdstrike founder and CEO, is a decorated driver in sports car racing. He won the LMP2 class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2019.

Friday morning, Kurtz appeared on NBC’s “Today” to apologize and reassure the public, “We’re deeply sorry for the impact that we’ve caused to customers, to travelers, to anyone affected by this, including our company,” He also mentioned that a reboot could resolve the issue for some, but other machines may have to wait for a more comprehensive fix.