George Russell’s terrifying scream for help as his Mercedes flips during horror Australian GP crash

Mercedes driver George Russell's Australian Grand Prix race came to a horror end as his car suffered a major shunt and flipped onto its side, right in the middle of a live track. A spine-tingling radio conversation of Russell with his team has now gone viral on social media showing how terrified the Briton was of being smacked from behind by the speeding cars.

The incident transpired on the final lap of the race as Russell attempted to make a late dash to overtake Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso. However, right on the apex, Russell lost control of the car, glided into the gravel trap, and slammed into the wall before the tyres came unhinged, which flipped the car onto its side.

Concerned that he was a sitting duck, Russell, with horror in his voice, begged for the race to be stopped, or in racing terms - red-flagged.

"Red flag, red flag, red flag," he yelled. "I'm in the middle of the track. Red flag, red flag! Red, red, red, red, red. I'm in the middle. Red! F***ing hell."

Despite Russell's plea, the race director only opted for a virtual safety car and the race was brought to a close. Fortunately, the drivers behind Russell did not wallop through the blind corner and managed to circumvent the debris and the crashed car carefully.

After the safety car was deployed, Russell was extracted out of the car and taken to the paddock safely.

“I really don’t know what happened, to be honest. I was half a second behind Fernando on the entry of the corner and then suddenly, before the apex, I was right on his gearbox and lost the car, ran wide," said Russell.

The stewards summoned both Russell and Alonso to their room and took stock of the situation.A few hours later, Alonso was handed a 20-second post-race penalty, which saw him dropped from sixth to eighth place.

Fans worried

Fans were also worried about Russell's situation which could have easily turned awry.

"That was so scary. I can't imagine being in that position," a netizen said, while another commented:"Glad everyone (especially the car behind) slow down enough and nothing major happened. One miscommunication and he's on firing line of other cars with 200++ kph."

Another added: "For real, imagine crashing, your car being sideways with you still buckled in, it's a high-speed corner, you're laying head first and are surrounded by a cloud of dust so nobody can see you coming around that corner."

Russell crashing out meant Mercedes went home without any points from the Australian GP as Lewis Hamilton had retired, earlier in the race after suffering a power unit failure.

(With inputs from agencies)