George Russell was taken to the medical centre after suffering a heavy crash during FP2 at the Mexican Grand Prix on Friday.
The Mercedes racer was testing the new Pirelli range for 2025 as part of an extended FP2 session when he lost control of his W15 at Turn Eight, finding the barriers with a significant impact after getting on the outside kerb.
In line with FIA protocols, the G-force of the crash was large enough to trigger the deployment of the medical car, and Russell stumbled out of the cockpit with his left hand clutched to his stomach.
The crash brought out the third red flag of the day after a short delay for debris at the start of FP1 was followed up by a bizarre collision involving Alex Albon and Oliver Bearman.
For Russell, the shunt was the last thing he needed following a turbulent weekend in Austin. The Brit crashed into the outside barrier at Turn 19 in qualifying, resigning him to a pit lane start in the Grand Prix.
The man from King’s Lynn wasn’t the only Mercedes driver to suffer misfortune in Texas. Team-mate Lewis Hamilton was eliminated in Q1 following an uncharacteristically poor qualifying session, and then spun into the gravel on lap three, bringing his Grand Prix to a premature end.
Russell’s expectations heading into the Mexican GP weekend were far from optimistic. “Having reviewed everything as a team, I think we were just sailing too close to the wind,” he said ahead of the on-track action.
“We know how aggressively you need to set up for this era of cars, how low to the ground you need to run them, how stiff you need to run them, and I think clearly it caught both myself and Lewis out over the weekend. On the flip side, there were definitely glimmers of really strong performance in there.
“We know we need to be more conservative with the set-up. That may hinder the performance so we’re going into this weekend with an open mind. Lewis will be on the new upgrades, I’ll be on the old package because we don’t have two sets of it, and we’ll see how we get on. I’m not expecting, unfortunately, to set the world on fire this weekend.”
