Zhou Guanyu says he was left dazed and confused when his Alfa Romeo came to rest, wedged between the barriers and the catch-fencing, after his dramatic start-line crash at the British Grand Prix.
Zhou was the innocent victim of a contact at the start between Pierre Gasly and George Russell which pitched the Mercedes driver into the Alfa and immediately overturned the Chinese driver's car.
The collapse of the Alfa's roll hoop was a measure of the huge force with which the car hit the tarmac upon its first flip. Zhou reckoned the brunt exceeded the FIA's roll hoop safety test constraints.
"With that first impact, where it landed on the first flip, the team is still doing an investigation, but I think the first hit was much harder than what they test for the safety test," he said in Austria on Thursday, speaking for the first time since his massive crash.
"This was like a few times harder than the actual numbers we want in that. So obviously, that's probably created the problem that came up straight away."
The halo cockpit safety device fortunately protected the Chinese driver as the overturned Alfa skid at full speed down the track.
During his terrifying joy ride, as he braced for impact, Zhou locked himself into position, keeping his arms down in the cockpit the best he could to avoid injury.
"Obviously when the flip happened the first thing I was trying to do was trying to release my hand off the steering wheel," he said.
"Because you never know, you can break your wrist very easily with a crash like that.
"And then the next thing I tried to do, while I was just rolling on the ground, I knew I'll be facing a massive impact coming up, because the car wasn't stopping. And then I tried to lock myself in a position that is the safest possible, just waiting for that last impact.
"It's not like I was just holding the hand backwards, but keeping it reasonably in tension, so it doesn't get flying around when you have that last impact.
"Basically, I was just waiting for the last stop hit. And once I was basically stopped, I didn't know where I was, because I was upside down!"
As he collected his thoughts, his car wedged between the back of the tyre barrier and the catch fencing, its engine still running, Zhou felt an unusual and worrying sensation.
Guanyu Zhou (CHN) Alfa Romeo F1 Team C42 crashes at the start of the race.
03.07.2022. Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 10, British Grand Prix, Silverstone, England, Race Day.
- www.xpbimages.com, EMail: requests@xpbimages.com © Copyright: Batchelor / XPB Images
"The next thing I felt was basically there was leaking," he recounted. "I wasn't sure if it was from my body, or from the car.
"So I just tried to switch the engine off, because the engine was still on by then. Because I knew if a fire starts, it will be difficult to get out.
"I didn't know what happened, who hit me, because I was going straight next to the white line before Turn 1, and then suddenly there was a massive shunt."
©BenStansill-AFP/Getty
Despite his car's uncomfortable and dangerous position, Zhou was able to signal to a member of Silverstone's rescue team that he was more or less alright. He quickly realized the vital role played by the Alfa's Halo.
"He [a marshal] was obviously making a conversation with me. He was making sure I was conscious, and everything was OK, remembering what happened. So I remembered everything, and I felt okay.
"I had to kind of slide myself a little bit out. So at least to have my leg, my feet already kind of out and on the top of the seat. And they were able to pull me out.
"I didn't realise I was between the barriers. I was thinking I was next to the barriers. But I was actually between the barrier and the fence, which I don't know how I survived.
"But then looking back then obviously I saw the Halo saved me for that."
The Chinese charger joked that the worst part of his day had been the traffic on the M1 and his four-hour long trop back home.
"I was struck in traffic on the M1," he said. "I picked the wrong road! I left like 5pm, I got home at 9pm. That was a long, long day.
"You just want to go back home just to chill a bit, because I was covered in dust, there was so much dust after the impact. So I just wanted to go home, have a shower and just relax."
Once he was settled, Zhou watched a replay of the race on TV, and felt no need to call on mental support.
"I didn't feel sick watching it, or have that feeling," he said.
"So I feel like I was able to kind of digest it a bit myself, so I was happy just to have one day off, and straight back into checking my physical condition the next day on Tuesday back home.
"For me, it wasn't a concern. Obviously there's times when you do something and you need a bit of mental help. But this time I don't feel it was needed.
"I'm just quite happy to have like a back-to-back race," he concluded.
"Because obviously, if you have a summer break just after that, it would be terrible. because you will be under pressure, you'll be thinking about it, repeat the crash again, even though you try to avoid it, you somehow find it somewhere.
"It's good to be straight back in."
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