‘I don’t know how I survived’ - Zhou Guanyu opens up on Silverstone horror crash for first time ahead of Austrian GP

Alfa Romeo driver Zhou Guanyu has spoken to the media at length for the first time after his frightening crash at Silverstone on Sunday during the British Grand Prix. Zhou — 2022’s sole rookie — suffered his first major crash seconds into the race when his car made contact with Mercedes' George Russell, who had been clipped by AlphaTauri driver Pierre Gasly. Ad/> The 23-year-old’s car rolled upside down and across the gravel, before it flipped over the tyre wall in front of a startled crowd, where he was trapped between the barriers and the catch fencing.

British Grand Prix'I gave it everything' — Hamilton delighted with podium finish at Silverstone03/07/2022 AT 19:38 Amazingly, Zhou walked away from the wreckage unharmed — with only his helmet suffering a few scratches — and on Thursday gave a full account of the incident for the first time. “Once the flip happened, the first thing I was trying to do was trying to release my hand off the steering wheel,” he explained. “Because you never know, you can break your hand very easily with a crash like that, and because while I was just rolling on the ground I knew that I’d be facing a massive impact coming up because the car wasn’t stopping.

“And yeah, I tried to lock myself in a position that is the most safest possible, just waiting for the last impact. Just holding the hand backwards, but keep it reasonably tensioned so it doesn’t go flying around when you have that last impact. So that was the case.

“Once I was basically stopped, I didn’t know where I was, because I was upside down. Basically, there was [some fluid] leaking. I wasn’t sure if it was from my body or is this from the car? “So I just tried to switch off the engine because the engine was still on by then.