George Russell recalls the first moments after Guanyu Zhou’s accident at Silverstone and affirms that lessons should be learned
For his reaction after Guanyu Zhou’s accident at Silverstone, George Russell was celebrated. In doing so, it was quite “natural” for him to go straight after his colleague, the Mercedes driver stressed on Thursday in Spielberg.
He got out of his damaged Mercedes immediately after the collision and ran to Zhou, whose Alfa Romeo was stuck between the stack of tyres and the catch fence.
“I think it’s a very natural reaction,” says Russell himself. He has been widely praised for his actions, including by IndyCar driver Callum Ilott. He revealed on Twitter that Russell had also come to his rescue once before when he flipped his kart in a race.
During the time Russell was tending to Zhou at Silverstone, however, his damaged W13 was taken away, meaning it could not be repaired to resume the race after the lengthy red flag stoppage.
But the Briton didn’t expect to be able to continue anyway: “Obviously the race was stopped with a red flag and after such a terrible incident I thought my car was probably beyond saving. As it turned out, however, that was not the case.”
“That just added to the emotion and frustration because we could have definitely kept going and probably got a good result,” Russell believes.
As one of the directors of the GPDA drivers’ association, he reiterates the need for Formula One and the FIA to close the gap between the barriers that allowed Zhou and his car to become trapped in the first place.
“It was kind of horrible to see him trapped there,” the Mercedes driver recalled. “He literally couldn’t get out of the car. He was obviously fine and I could see he was moving. But as drivers, we all know it’s pretty cramped in there. “
“You’ve got the helmet on, you’ve got the halo, the headrest. And then when you have a wall of tyres on your head blocking your exit while you’re hanging upside down, it’s just a terrible situation,” Russell knows and calls for action.
“Any kind of disaster is an opportunity to improve the sport. Of course, things could have been arranged a bit differently to allow him to get out. There was a gap between the barriers and the catch fence. That’s where he was trapped. That needs to be sorted out. It wasn’t pretty.”