George Russell was worried about himself while stranded in the middle of the track in F1 Australian GP amid red flag pleas.
It wasn’t the best of way for Mercedes’ Russell to end his F1 Australian GP. He lay sideways with his car hanging on the left rear tyre on the middle of the circuit at Turn 6 after a heavy shunt while chasing Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso.
The FIA stewards put some blame on Alonso for the crash after the Spaniard took the turn differently than previous occasions which they think surprised Russell and upset his rhythm. The Aston Martin driver accepted the decision but did not agree wholly.
Russell, meanwhile, sounded terrified on the radio as several cars came by him post his shunt. There was a risk of someone hitting the car straight on in the high-speed corner. He asked for immediate red flag but the race director deployed the Virtual Safety Car.
“Red flag! Red flag! Red flag! I’m in the middle of the track! Red flag! Red flag! Red! Red! Red! Red! Red! I’m in the middle! Red! F*cking hell,” shouted Russell. Speaking about the situation, the Brit added further about the distress and worry he was in.
“I’m okay,” started Russell. “It was not a pleasant place to be in the middle of the high speed corner on the racing line. With the VSC taking 10 or 15 seconds to come out. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but you can have three cars from around the corner in the space of 10 seconds.
“And when you’re doing 250 in a corner and the car in the middle of the road, I was really quite worried,” summed up Russell, who when told that Alonso was going through his own troubles during the race, didn’t wanted to accuse the Spaniard of deliberate approach change in order to put off the Brit from overtaking him.
“I can’t comment,” said Russell. “From how much he slowed up, we’ve seen the data. I suspect he would have a problem. But the FIA are gonna have all the data. So I don’t know, I’m not going to point fingers or accuse anyone of anything. Ultimately, I was the one who lost the car.
“But I was really surprised, you’re pushing the limits and you’re driving around with the best drivers in the world, as it wasn’t expecting somebody to check up that much. And if you did have a problem that makes total sense,” summed up Russell, as Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff didn’t wish to point fingers at Alonso either.
On the red flag call, Wolff was fine with the VSC but only thought it was maybe few seconds later than he would have wanted. “I mean, George was quite vocal about it,” he said. “Even at the end, the moment you have a VSC it’s neutralised anyway, so I think that’s OK. The question is how quickly do we hit the button.”
Here’s the crash: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2024-australian-grand-prix-big-crash-for-russell-on-the-last-lap-at-albert-park.1794388684955420764.html
Here’s Fernando Alonso on penalty call plus explaining his side
Here’s how F1 Australian GP panned out plus stewards’ explanation
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