Mercedes "back where we need to be" after CrowdStrike tech glitch drama

The Mercedes Formula 1 team says it is back where it needs to be after morning dramas triggered by the global CrowdStrike IT outage.

A defect in a software update rolled out by the American cybersecurity technology company CrowdStrike affected Microsoft Windows machines around the world on Friday morning.

The problems caused a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) on affected machines, with banks, airlines and television companies all suffering problems that took their systems down for a while.

CrowdStrike is a sponsor of the Mercedes team and, because the outfit uses its software, it too experienced issues with the computers that it used.

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The fix for the CrowdStrike problem was to roll back each Windows machine to the previous version of the software, something that was easy to do but time-consuming.

Mercedes had to perform that task on Friday morning as it completed the rollbacks on each of the computers it used at both the track and factory.

The final computers that were sorted were those on the pit wall because they were not needed until the first practice session got underway.

It is understood however that by the time practice got underway at 1.30pm local time, all the work had been completed and there was no impact on how the session ran.

Mercedes engineering director Andrew Shovlin said that the impact of the problem on their track running had been almost nothing, and everything was sorted for the remainder of the weekend.

"We've had great support from them and all our partners," he said. "There was a bit of work that we had to do. We've got a lot of computers around the garage and pit walls and things here, and those all needed updating.

"But we've worked through that. The impact in FP1 was minimal, if not nil. So, it created a bit of work, but we're back where we need to be now."

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team, in the team principals' Press Conference

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Long-time motorsport sponsor Acronis, which has worked in F1 and currently sponsors Hendrick Motorsports in NASCAR, said that the solution to the CrowdStrike update problem was clunky.

Kevin Reed, Acronis Chief Information Security Officer, said: "The recent CrowdStrike outage appears to stem from a bug in their EDR agent, which was unfortunately not thoroughly tested.

"This resulted in widespread disruption as many installations were affected globally. The flawed update necessitates manual intervention to resolve, specifically rebooting systems in "safe mode" and deleting the faulty driver file.

"This process is cumbersome and leaves systems vulnerable in the interim, potentially inviting opportunistic attacks."