George Russell says he taped up the air vents on his helmet prior to Formula 1’s Bahrain Grand Prix due to the sand – though quickly realised he made a mistake.
Reigning Formula 2 Champion Russell started from 19th on the grid and raced to 15th position after prevailing in a battle against Williams team-mate Robert Kubica.
But he revealed post-race that he had to regularly lift his visor due to the self-inflicted extreme heat inside the cockpit.
“It was actually a very hot race for me because on my lap to the grid because of the wind there was a lot of sand on the track,” he said.
“I was getting sand through my air vents in the helmet, so I decided to tape up the air vents when I got on the grid.
“As soon as I went out for half a lap on the formation lap I realised those air vents are there for a reason!
“I had to drive for the whole race with my visor slightly open. I couldn’t drive more than 30 seconds with the visor closed without the air.
“I had the water bottle at least – it wasn’t hot [water] though. That was a surprise. I’m still waiting for the cup of tea! I was still drinking at the end – no sand in it at least.”
Russell nonetheless savoured his fight with Kubica – most of which was not shown on the world feed – and was grateful to Williams for allowing its drivers to properly race.
“I had a good race, some good battles with Robert that I found out zero of which were shown on television,” he said.
“Robert overtook me at the start into Turn 1, I overtook him back on the exit into Turn 4, then I think [Lance] Stroll had a puncture, I was expecting him to wash out and go wide so I went to the inside but he actually took the inside so Robert re-overtook me. That was that.
“I was stuck behind Robert and I managed to overtake him and it was weird; I managed to stay really close to him for a long period of time, and as soon as I overtook him I couldn’t pull away, and he stayed behind me for a long period of time.
“I made a small mistake and he was on me and he overtook me into Turn 4; he pitted earlier than me and came out about 10 seconds ahead, which I was a bit annoyed about because my tyres were gone and I was on the softer tyre, he was on the harder tyre, but because he was ahead he had to box first. I had to wait for him to box first so I lost a lot of time.
“I managed to catch him back up and re-overtake him. It was nice and I’m thankful to the team for letting us race as in our current predicament it could have been easy for them to say hold position.
“And there weren’t slam dunk passes, both of our overtakes were actual overtakes. I had to lunge it down the inside, it was nice, first sort of F1 overtake. But from a personal perspective it was good.”
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