George Russell said he broke his head rest during his accident in qualifying for the Sao Paulo sprint race. The Brit spun into the barriers in the final session which resulted in a red flag and nobody was able to improve their time. The Mercedes star had already secured P3 for Saturday’s sprint race behind Max Verstappen and surprise pole sitter Kevin Magnussen.
Reflecting on his session in which he incurred some damage to this car Russell said: “There were some mixed emotions for me in that session. It was a pretty unique experience in Q3. We were one of the last cars on the road, and as the lap progressed, the rain was falling harder and harder and it was a lot wetter in the final corner than on the lap before,” he added.
“On the next lap, I lost the car into Turn 4 and actually broke the headrest because my head was bouncing round so much; then I tried to do a 360 and beached the rear tyres in the gravel, which wasn’t my best decision. There’s a lot of gravel in there but the guys will have to take it to pieces to get everything out, so hopefully it will all be okay. Even so, P3 is a good starting position for tomorrow.
