George Russell delivers ‘scared’ admission after Piastri pit lane crash

As the F1 2025 field returned to the pit lane following a red flag in Free Practice 2 before the Dutch Grand Prix, George Russell found himself caught up in a near collision with the McLaren of Oscar Piastri.

The British racer admitted that the incident “scared” him, as no driver expects that kind of chaos in the relative safety of pit lane.

George Russell “scared” by Oscar Piastri pit lane incident

During Free Practice 2 ahead of the Dutch Grand Prix, Alex Albon lost control of his Williams, and the machine careened into the wall at Turn 1 to trigger the waving of the red flags.

As the field returned to the pit lane, though, something odd happened. Oscar Piastri looked to be dipping into his pit box in front of his garage — only to swerve back out into the pit lane. After nearly making contact with the Mercedes of George Russell, Piastri dipped into his proper box.

The incident could have resulted in some major damage, but thankfully, Russell was able to veer quickly to avoid any contact — though he admitted that the situation “scared” him.

Regarding the incident, Russell said of Piastri, “I think he pulled in a bit too early, pulled back out.

“A bit unfortunate, but it scared me a bit, because, you know — when you’re on track, you’re sort of ready for anything, but when you’re in the pit lane going, like, relatively very slow, you’re just chilling out.

“I was looking at my screen; I was like, ‘Oh, Jesus!’ It caught me by surprise!”

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What was less surprising was the summoning of Piastri and McLaren to the stewards after the session, during which time the team was handed a €5,000 fine for failing to warn Piastri that there was a car so close to him.

The verdict reads: “The stewards heard from the driver of Car 81 (Oscar Piastri), team representative and reviewed video, team radio and in-car video evidence.

“Car 81 attempted to leave the fast lane and enter its pit box during a red flag period in Free Practice 2. As Car 81 approached the pit box, the entry was blocked by team personnel pushing a rear jack. Another team member signalled Car 81 to go around him to the next pit area which he did. In doing so, he turned back briefly within the fast lane and thereafter entered the pit box.

“All of this resulted in Car 63 having to brake heavily and take evasive action. No collision was caused, however, the situation could have resulted in one. It could also have resulted in injury to one or more team personnel in the pit lane.

“The team acknowledged that the driver was not warned and also recognised that they could have managed the situation better. We agreed that the team should have taken more care in managing the entry of Car 81 into the pit box.

“Although we issued the summons based on Article 55.5 of the FIA Formula One Sporting Regulations, we felt that Article 12.2.1.h better reflected the infringement by the team in this instance.”

Aside from the pit lane chaos, Russell said he “felt good out there, to be honest.”

“It was great to be back driving again after a couple of weeks out,” he reflected.

“Conditions for everybody were really tricky, and it was really windy. This circuit has a lot of 180-degree corners, so when it is windy and gusty, the car is going through sort of that whole phase of a corner.

“So it’s sort of more exposed than on other circuits, maybe like Silverstone, when it’s a little bit sort of ‘in and out’ of the corner.

“But competitiveness — maybe not quite as close to the front as we’d like, but the race pace looks okay, sort of in the usual mix.”

In fact, there was an Aston Martin-shaped barrier blocking much of the expected frontrunners from the top of the charts. Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso settled into third and fourth on the timing sheets in FP1; while Stroll crashed out of FP2, Alonso trailed frontrunner Lando Norris by the blink of an eye.

“These last couple of races have been really surprising,” Russell admitted of the pace.

“Aston obviously had a really bad run of form, and then they were really on it in Hungary and made a great result. Here they look fast.

“Ferrari have seemed really off the pace today, but I’m sure that can turn very quickly as well. And same with Max; you know, he had a tough race in Hungary. I think that was more of an outlier.

“So as it stands, it looks like a bit of a fight with the Astons, with Max, and with ourselves, but I’m sure Ferrari will get in there.”

Russell finished FP1 in seventh place before setting the fourth-fastest time in the red flag-studded FP2 session.

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