George Russell injured by his F1 car as Mercedes monster bites back

Mercedes F1 star George Russell revealed that a bizarre moment during pre-season testing caused him a minor injury.

Russell was racing around in his W17 for the first time last week, at the private shakedown in Barcelona, where Mercedes showcased some impressive reliability given how early we are into the regulation reset.

Mercedes completed over 500 laps, while Russell and Kimi Antonelli's interviews throughout the week were very positive.

On top of this, Mercedes topped the timesheets on two of their three allocated days of running in Barcelona, suggesting that they have the pace to match their reliable W17.

However, it's still early days, and the lap times that came out of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya were not even officially released by F1.

Nonetheless, the strong start has backed up rumours that have been spreading throughout the winter that Mercedes are in the best position to get ahead of their rivals with the implementation of the new regulations.

Now, however, Russell has revealed a bizarre issue with his W17 which caused him a bit of pain during the week.

In a video shared by Mercedes on Instagram, Russell was seen with an ice pack strapped to his leg. When asked what he’d done, the English driver replied: "Yeah, I was a bit… I kicked the car," before the video then cut to showing the incident in which Russell connects with the car. "It’s quite lumpy."

Russell then lifted up the ice pack to show a fairly deep cut on his shin. "I’ll be fine, it’ll rub off," he said.

F1 TESTING RESULTS: Barcelona shakedown times as Hamilton roars back

F1's pre-season testing schedule

Russell and his W17 are set to head off to Bahrain next month for the first of two three-day testing events at the Bahrain International Circuit.

The first one takes place between February 11-13, and is expected to be much more representative of where the teams are in the F1 pecking order this year.

What's more, we will have at least some live TV coverage of the event, and lap times will be officially timed and released via an F1 data feed, which was missing from the first private shakedown in Barcelona.

The second Bahrain test takes place between February 18-20, and this one will be fully live across F1TV and Sky Sports F1 for UK viewers, with fans being able to watch every minute of the action.

When does the 2026 F1 season start?

Russell will be back in action properly when the 2026 season starts in Melbourne for the Australian Grand Prix.

The first race of the year takes place on March 8 at 3pm local time (AEDT), 4am GMT and 11pm ET, with practice and qualifying taking place on the Friday and Saturday that weekend.

F1 TESTING 2026: Key dates, times and how to watch live

Related