Russell recalls 'dark day' with Williams that helped him grow

George Russell says a "dark day" suffered with his former Williams team back in 2020 proved to be a seminal moment from which he learned and grew.

The event was the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola where Russell, in his second season with Williams, was offered a golden opportunity to score his first points in F1.

A solid effort on race day had allowed the Briton to haul himself into the top-ten with just 13 laps to go when Max Verstappen's Red Bull suffered a tyre failure while running second, an incident that triggered the deployment of the Safety Car.

Russell lined up directly behind the latter but in an effort to warm up his tyres before the restart, the Williams driver overdid it and speared off to the left into the barriers, his race ending on the spot.

It was a massive blow for the young Brit who was bewildered by his own "stupid mistake", and sat for a lengthy period behind the barrier pondering his painful fate.

"That was a dark day, that was a day I learned how brutal a Formula 1 car is," Russell said in a video interview in which he recalled his time at Williams.

"When you’ve got 1,000 brake horsepower underneath your right foot, you’re gone in a second and you can’t even control it. I hit a bump just as I was accelerating, and the car just went. Within a second, I was in the wall.

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"I was in P10 at the time, we had obviously not scored any points…I was pretty mortified with myself. I felt like I had massively let the whole team down."

While gutted, Russell eventually collected his thoughts and took something positive away from the blunder in the days that followed.

"Without a doubt I grew as a person," he added. "In an ideal world you want an easy path, you want things to come to you naturally.

"I’m so passionate about racing and that was probably one of the biggest mistakes I had personally made ever, but it made me stronger and more resilient."

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