after witnessing the “horrifying” crash of Zhou Guanyu at the 2022
British GP. In his first British GP for Mercedes, Russell was
caught up in a start-line accident, where, on the hard tyres, he
was away and made contact with Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri. This in
turn tipped him into Zhou’s Alfa Romeo, which flipped upside down,
flew across the gravel trap before vaulting the tyre barrier,
coming to rest trapped up against it and the catch-fencing.
Fortunately, the Chinese racer was uninjured, but in the aftermath
of the accident, Russell, who retired on the spot with damage of
his own, clambered from his W13 machine and ran across the gravel
trap to see if he could render assistance to Zhou. Explaining that
the “racing instinct” wanted him to carry on, Russell revealed that
the “human side” took over as he decided to aid the marshals and
recovery teams in extracting Zhou. “I remember I made a really bad
start,” Russell told F1. “I was the only driver with the hard tyre
starting the race, came off the line, wheels spinning, all the
drivers zooming by me… “I hit Zhou, and the next thing he’s
spinning around and cartwheeling through the gravel. “It was
probably the most horrifying incident I’d ever seen from the
cockpit. “I saw he was stuck behind the barriers, so it was a
split… I think the racing instinct in me was like: ‘I need to carry
on here,’ and then I guess the human side came in. “It kind of
felt like life or death at that moment. I couldn’t imagine what he
must have felt. “I knew what I had to do.”