George Russell sheds light on bizarre Silverstone qualifying shunt

George Russell was left mystified by his crash during the first qualifying segment on Saturday at Silverstone.

The Briton was on a fast lap when he locked up through Turn 7 in an unusual incident at relatively low speed.

He skated across the gravel and made contact with the barrier, inflicting damage on his front wing.

However, he avoided harm to his suspension and did not get beached in the gravel, allowing him to return to the pit lane under his own power.

When asked what caused his off, Russell told Sky F1: “I don't know. 

“I've raced here for 12 years, and I've never locked up once in that corner before. 

“So we made some changes to the setup. It was probably more extreme than before. I don't know what happened. It was weird.”

Russell went on to qualify in fourth place and was unable to get himself involved in the fight for pole.

The Briton highlighted that he was not carrying any lingering damage from the off-track excursion but rather was carrying a straight-line speed deficit, the cause of which is unknown.

“This whole weekend, we're struggling with straight line speed,” he said.

“We don't know why, compared to all the other Mercedes cars, we're losing 3 km/h in the last sector, 3 km/h in the middle sector.

“There's a couple of tenths over the lap compared to all the other Mercedes cars, so I don't really know why that is. 

“The team will work super hard to try and understand.”