Mercedes has praised George Russell for his “natural reaction” to assist Zhou Guanyu after their crash at the British Grand Prix.
Contact between the two drivers flipped Zhou’s Alfa Romeo upside-down in the early metres of the race, with his car sliding at high speed before rolling over again in the gravel and ending up between the tyre barrier and the catch fencing.
Thankfully, Zhou escaped without injury but Russell had been the first man on the scene after getting out of his car and running to the Chinese driver’s aid.
“It was just a natural reaction for me to do,” George commented on Thursday.
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“That the race was red-flagged and seeing such a horrific incident.
“For me it was horrifying to see him trapped in there, literally not being able to get out of the car. He was obviously fine and I could see he was moving.
“You are in there pretty tight and when you have a tyre wall on top of you and your head blocking your exit upside down, it’s a horrible position to be in.
“I think from every disaster there are improvements that can be made, and hopefully the gap between the catch fencing and the barrier can be resolved. It wasn’t nice for sure.”
Russell’s response inadvertently meant he took himself out of the race, with the marshals loading his car onto a flatbed and transporting it back to the pits.
“I thought at the time my car was game over and it wasn’t,” he said.
“It just adds to the emotion because we could have probably got going again and probably scored a strong result.”
As a result, Silverstone was the first time this season that the former Williams driver had not finished a race in the top five all season.
“George certainly had the pace to make up ground from P8. It was a shame he couldn’t race, but we’re proud of the character he showed after the incident,” Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said.