George Russell completed Q3 of Mercedes' nightmares, ran off the track on the last corner and also crashed in Austria. The crash was less severe than that of teammate Lewis Hamilton, but it also knocked the young Briton out of contention for pole position in the sprint race
If Mercedes' situation was already bad with Lewis Hamilton's crash, it got worse when George Russell also ended up on the tire barrier in Austria. On Friday (8), the young Briton lost his car in the last corner and hit the back of the car.
It was the second red flag caused by Mercedes in Q3 of qualifying at the Red Bull Ring in a few minutes, as Hamilton had crashed hard moments earlier in the Spielberg circuit.
What makes the news less worse for Mercedes is that Russell had at least set a fast lap and thus leaves from fifth place on Saturday, while Hamilton was tenth, with no competitive lap recorded in the pole setting.
Mercedes had been recovering strongly, with its result and performance in England, but it already knows that it will have a weekend of reassembly ahead of it. For this, it is also counting on a sprint race to begin to reduce the damage.
GRAND PRIME follows LIVE and INREAL TIME all the activities of the Austrian GP weekend. The sprint race is scheduled for 11:30 am (GMT-3) on Saturday.