- The Mercedes F1 team was briefly impacted by the CrowdStrike IT outage.
- CrowdStrike is also their sponsor.
- Mercedes implemented fixes, and operations at the track proceeded "seamlessly," a spokesperson said.
The Mercedes F1 team was temporarily affected by the mass IT outage, which was caused by its own sponsor, the cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike.
CrowdStrike said the outage originated from a "defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts," leaving many Microsoft users facing the so-called "blue screen of death" as they were locked out of their computers.
The outage was one of the most widespread IT failures in history. International flights were grounded, and many business operations came to a halt. For the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula 1 team, the outage came as it prepped for the Hungarian Grand Prix Free Practice 1 session.
An image circulating on social media showed Mercedes team members grappling with their blue-screened computers while sporting their CrowdStrike-branded t-shirts.
A Mercedes spokesperson told Business Insider that they applied "some fixes this morning, which we did immediately with CrowdStrike's support, and our operations at track were unaffected."
"The fixes included the machines that run the pit wall, and as this was not needed until 1330 local time, these were some of the last fixes to be applied. Hence the imagery of team members at the pit wall, shortly before FP1," Chief Communications Officer Bradley Lord said in an email. "However, this was also not a source of disruption, and thanks to the hard work of our partners and IT team, we were able to continue operating seamlessly."