George Russell goes through his crash in F1 Canadian GP and the eventual brake issues which resulted in DNF.
It was a disappointing result in Canada for the second Mercedes in the hands on Russell. For the Brackley outfit, they appear to have got their mojo back in terms of competitiveness with their 2-3 finish in Barcelona and Lewis Hamilton backed it up with a podium finish in Montreal.
Russell while running well early on in fourth got caught out upon running wide and hit the wall. While there was damage, he did manage to continue, albeit gingerly around the circuit to pit and continue on eventually for more time. He could in hindsight be forgiven for thinking his day was done there and then.
“I just went a bit wide into Turn 8,” said Russell to media. “I knew I was going to hit the kerb but I wasn’t expecting the sausage kerb to have such a violent response. Next thing, I’m in the air. When I landed, I lost the rear and I was in the wall. It all happened really quite suddenly. I was surprised that we managed to continue”.
“I was very close to pulling up. I learned from the Silverstone experience not to stop too early. But for sure, it’s a difficult pill to swallow. But that’s how the sport should be. Once small mistake and you should be punished for it,” summed up Russell, who felt fine to continue on until the brake issues getting bad leading to retirement.
“It didn’t feel 100% perfect but it was good enough to drive,” continued Russell. “I think the rear toe was probably a little bit out. We could have finished home in P8 but we were in a lot of traffic and the pre-race predictions, obviously we weren’t expecting to be in that position. Hence why we probably got the brakes in the wrong place”.
“I need to look into it with the team but I’m pretty sure it was just because I was in so much traffic. We weren’t planning to be and the brakes weren’t in the right spot for that,” summed up Russell. However, at the same time, it came to light that the Brit was advised to nurse his brakes early on in the event but it lost out.
“Pretty early but it was all quite sudden when it was too late,” stated Russell. “I think the thing with brakes, once you go over a certain oxidation threshold, there’s no recovering. It doesn’t matter how much you nurse them. They’re just on a rate you can’t recovery.”
It was a great shame as around this time last season he had started a remarkable run of consistency, but he and the team will get there. Team boss Toto Wolff after the race added more about what happened with Russell and the brake trouble.
“The oxidation metrics were high on both cars,” said Wolff. “But after he hit the wall interestingly, the oxidation metrics went dramatically up on the left. And it was decided we couldn’t finish the race and we had to retire the car.”
Here’s the crash for George Russell: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2023-canadian-grand-prix-russell-retires-with-brake-trouble-40-laps-after-hitting-the-wall.1769071754284501727.html
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