12/11/2022
NEWS STORY
It has been revealed that George Russell's helmet broke his headrest when he went off into the gravel during Q3.
The incident caused the session to be red-flagged, and it was during the stoppage that conditions worsened, thereby ensuring that Kevin Magnussen retained pole position for the Sprint.
Locking up his rears at Turn 4, the Mercedes driver went over the wet grass and on to the kitty litter, but in attempting to spin the car and get his car pointing in the right direction to rejoin the track the Briton merely 'buried' the car in the gravel.
At the time of his off he was third and consequently held on to the starting position. However, when asked what went through his mind as he realised he was stuck and his session was over he admitted: "What was going through my mind is I was getting a really bad headache. I'd broken the headrest because my head was banging so much. It was a pretty unpleasant experience.
"Then I lost the rear," he continued. "I booted it... I wanted to do a 360 and then dipped the rears in the gravel. So probably not the wisest choice I've ever made. But, as it turned out, we knew that first lap was it all.
"I've mixed emotions," he admitted, "because we were obviously one of the last cars to go out in qualifying, and it was such a unique experience.
"As the lap progressed, the rain was falling harder and harder, and I got to the last corner and it was a lot wetter than it was on the lap before. So we had to be really tentative.
"But massive congratulations to Kevin and Haas. This is what Formula 1 and sport is about; to have some crazy results like this. But, for us, P3 is a good place to start for the sprint."
Check out our Friday gallery from Interlagos here.