Madrid, Sep 11 — Mercedes driver George Russell called the new Madrid street circuit to have "less margin for error" than even the tight streets of Monaco after the recent F2 car crash on Friday.
Russell had previously called the Circuito de Madring, the new F1 circuit, the "craziest circuit on the calendar" in the pre-weekend presser. Now he has reacted to the crash, calling the Madrid street track to have an even smaller margin for error than Monaco due to the speeds.
"I would put this as a circuit that has less margin than Monaco," Russell said, as quoted by the Independent. "Purely because of the speed. In Monaco, the walls are closer, but you’re going slower… if you make a mistake, you’re in the wall less quickly, and if you lock up, you can recover it.
"Here, there’s a lot of really fast corners and the barriers are almost coming onto the track. If you are to go wide and hit the wall, you’re not hitting it at the same angle the car is going.
He also cautioned about possible lock-ups of the steering and that the Madrid track remained reminiscent of the lock-ups at Baku and Jeddah. "Then another element of the challenge here is that there will be a lot of lock-ups. If you lock up at turn five, the wall is right in front of you. Very similar to Baku and then Jeddah-esque too," he said.
Little before the F1 first practice, Thai driver Inthraphuvasak escaped unhurt from the crash in F2, an F1 feeder series, as his car burst into flames at the first-ever race weekend at the Madring GP. The racer jumped out of his car unhurt as he jumped over the wall, and marshals arrived for their fire-extinguishing work.
In the first F1 practice session, Russell clocked the fastest time of 1:34.077s, a little less than three tenths clear of his teammate and current title leader Kimi Antonelli, with the Ferrari pair of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton being third and fourth.
Max Verstappen, who looks to cause some "chaos" at the Spanish GP with the unexpected nature of the track, was fifth ahead of McLaren's Lando Norris (6th), Racing Bulls' Arvid Lindblad (7th), McLaren's Oscar Piastri (8th), Audi's Nico Hulkenberg (9th) and Racing Bulls' Liam Lawson (10th) to wrap up the top 10.