George Russell insists the new Madrid street circuit has “less margin than Monaco” as he described the dangers of F1’s newest track for the Spanish Grand Prix.
The Mercedes driver, eyeing a much-needed victory this weekend as he looks to claw back a 66-point deficit to championship leader and teammate Kimi Antonelli, described the Madring as the “craziest circuit on the calendar” on Thursday.
Then, while speaking to The Independent and other British outlets on Friday, Russell reacted to the fiery F2 crash involving Thai driver Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak, who escaped unharmed.
“I would put this as a circuit that has less margin than Monaco,” Russell said. “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.
“Then another element of the challenge here, they’ll 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.
“The view after this weekend will be interesting.”
Max Verstappen has also warned of the test ahead, describing the Madring as a “car-killer”, the Red Bull superstar added: “It's going to be tough.
“I think when F3 were testing here there were a lot of shunts, so it's not an easy track, easy to make a mistake also with the layout of the track. The kerbs that are there, we need to run over a few of them, and that's normally not the strong point of our car, but we will try to do the best we can.
"It's a tough track. For me, what I feel while driving, it's a little bit the same kind of sensation that I get sometimes around Jeddah in places. Of course, Jeddah is faster on average with the corners, but the walls are quite similar in how they are positioned.
"It probably is a car killer from what I've seen so far but you just need to try and stay out of the walls and try to get the best possible feeling in the car. When you're confident in the car on a street circuit, it helps a lot."
Russell topped FP1 ahead of Antonelli and Charles Leclerc, with the Briton posting 1m 34.077s, nearly three tenths clear of his teammate, with the Ferrari driver and teammate Lewis Hamilton following.
Despite the trepidation of the circuit did not lead to any accidents or crashes during FP1.
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George Russell beats Kimi Antonelli in first practice as F1 returns to Madrid
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