George Russell was celebrated for his reaction after Guanyu Zhou’s accident at Silverstone. It was “natural” for him to check in on his colleague, the Mercedes driver emphasized in Spielberg on Thursday.
He got out of his wrecked Mercedes immediately after the collision and ran to Zhou, whose Alfa Romeo was stuck between the tire barrier and the safety fence.
“I think it’s a very natural reaction,” says Russell himself. His actions were widely praised, including by IndyCar driver Callum Ilott. He revealed on Twitter that Russell once came to his aid when he overturned his kart in a race.
However, while Russell was attending to Zhou at Silverstone, his damaged W13 was being taken away, meaning it was not allowed to be repaired to resume racing after the long red flag hiatus.
But the Brit 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 that my car was probably beyond salvage. As it turned out, it was not the case.”
“It only added to the emotion and frustration because we definitely could have gone on and probably got a good result,” Russell believes.
As one of the directors of the drivers’ association GPDA, he reiterates the need for Formula 1 and the FIA to close the gap between the barriers that made it possible for Zhou to have his car trapped in the first place.
“It was kind of awful 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 him moving. But as drivers, we all know it’s pretty cramped in there.”
“You have the helmet on, you have the halo, the headrest. And then when you have a tire wall on your head that blocks the exit while you’re hanging upside down, it’s just a terrible situation,” says Russell and calls for action .
“Any kind of disaster is an opportunity to improve the sport. Of course things could have been arranged a little differently to allow him to get out. There was a gap between the barriers and the safety fence. He was trapped there. That needs to be sorted out be. That wasn’t nice.”