George Russell admitted he was shocked when Mercedes workforce principal Toto Wolff shouted at him on the radio through the Austrian Grand Prix.
Wolff got here on the radio to inform Russell he was in place to win the race after Max Verstappen and Lando Norris collided whereas battling over the lead.
Russell’s race engineer Marcus Dudley advised him Verstappen had suffered a puncture within the collision. Because it emerged Norris had additionally incurred harm, Wolff referred to as out: “George, you may win this. You may win this, George.”
Wolff despatched his message as Russell was heading into the high-speed braking zone at flip three. Race engineers ordinarily keep away from speaking to their drivers at these important factors on the lap, and an alarmed Russell advised his workforce boss: “Let me fucking drive.”
Russell mentioned he was stunned by the sudden message as he was working third and attempting to remain forward of Carlos Sainz Jnr and Oscar Piastri.
“I knew Oscar was going to be fast, and he type of got here a bit bit out of nowhere in direction of the top of the race on these arduous tyres. For me it was fairly troublesome.
“Then out of the blue I had Toto screaming in my ear, ‘you may win this’. And I virtually crashed when he screamed into my ears. It was that loud.”
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Nevertheless Russell mentioned he appreciated Wolff’s eagerness for the workforce to attain its first win because the penultimate victory of 2022.
“I feel it simply goes to point out the eagerness that all of us share,” he mentioned. “And it’s clearly been a tricky couple of years for us. It feels nice to be again on the highest step.”
Though it took a slice of luck for Russell to attain his first win since Interlagos in 2022, Russell was completely happy to take it.
“It’s racing. Typically it goes towards you and I really feel like we’ve most likely missed out on one or two potentialities of victories.
Montreal was one, arguably Singapore [2023], issues may have gone very barely otherwise final yr, and at this time it went for us. So it’s how the cookie crumbles.”
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2024 Austrian Grand Prix
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