A clip of George Russell from the recent Canadian Grand Prix has surfaced on social media, after the Mercedes driver lost a tyre in the pit lane.
Russell had been running in fourth at the Canadian GP behind Fernando Alonso, when he heavily collided with a wall on the outside of Turn 9.
The impact caused significant damage to Russell’s W14, which left him with no choice but to enter the pits for repairs.
As he pulled into his pit box, Russell’s rear-right tyre fell off and nearly wiped out a Mercedes mechanic.
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The wheel sped down the pit lane before it was suddenly caught by a Ferrari mechanic, who gave the wheel back to the Silver Arrows.
Russell went on to rejoin the race, only to retire in the closing laps due to a serious of issues with his car.
A clip of Russell’s wheel being caught by Ferrari has now surfaced onto Instagram, with the speed of the tyre in particular being staggering to see.
Russell thankfully hasn’t had a similar incident since, although his form hasn’t been great.
The 25-year-old was embarrassingly eliminated in Q1 last weekend at the Hungarian Grand Prix, leaving him to start in 18th.
It’s difficult to believe that the British driver started last season’s Hungarian GP from pole position, given his poor performance on Saturday.
He did well to recover from his poor qualifying on Sunday though, as he salvaged a points finish.
Russell recovered to sixth after overtaking Carlos Sainz in the closing stages, whilst he also got within five seconds of Charles Leclerc who had a five-second time penalty for speeding in the pit lane.
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The recovery drive was enough to boost Russell into fifth in the Drivers’ Championship, although he finds himself 43 points behind team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
Hamilton finished two places ahead of Russell in fourth, after losing out on the opening lap having started on pole.
Russell will be keen to get back amongst the leading drivers this weekend at the Belgian Grand Prix, a venue where he claimed his first front row start and podium back in 2021 for Williams.