George Russell lost for words after huge fireball at Australian GP

George Russell was left stunned into silence after a massive fireball engulfed the pitlane at the Australian Grand Prix during a support race on Saturday. The Mercedes star stopped speaking during his post-qualifying interview with Sky Sports as he spotted the inferno on a TV screen behind him. 

It came after an incident in the Repco Supercars race which took place shortly after F1 qualifying. Flames erupted around James Courtney’s front left tyre as he cruised his Ford Mustang into the garage.

Russell stopped answering a question on Max Verstappen’s Red Bull dominance to watch the footage. After a few seconds, Russell reacted: “Wow there’s a massive fire. Ah bugger. Is he out? Yeah I hope he’s okay. You can smell the smoke from just over there.”

Courtney was unhurt after escaping when his car came to a halt outside of his pit box. He told Australian channel Fox: “I saw the flames and I said to the guys I can snell something from the front left corner.

“I could smell it and then I could see the flames so I just tried to get to the pits and all the fire stuff here to save the car. I’m not sure what’s going on but yeah it’s the front left corner. It’s probably similar to what happened to Nick.”

It was the second fire of the weekend for the Supercars series after Nick Percat’s Mustang caught alight on Friday. The two fires both started around the front left tyre in what could be a recurring issue.

Percat explained: “I’m not sure what happened. Got a good start, no contact. I thought I could smell something down the back straight … I didn’t think much of it.

“Got to the third last corner and thought ‘oh my God, I’m on fire’. I rolled in with no power. It’s been a shocking start, might have to find the black cat and sort it out.”

Russell will meanwhile start the F1 Australian Grand Prix from second on the grid after a stunning qualifying for Mercedes. The Silver Arrows unexpectedly beat Aston Martin and Ferrari and will start the race from P2 and P3.

Russell was optimistic about Mercedes’ pace as he suggested the team could have challenged for pole position. However, he still feels Verstappen will be tough to break down on Sunday as Red Bull eye their third win of the campaign.

When asked if he could stop Verstappen, he said: “No idea to be honest, We talk about this session as if we are very close to Max, We were still almost three-tenths behind him.”