‘The scariest thing I’ve ever seen’ – Formula 1 drivers, including Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo, recall Zhou Guanyu crash as new footage emerges

Formula 1 stars have detailed their thoughts on Zhou Guanyu’s ‘very scary’ crash at the British Grand Prix as new footage emerged of the horrifying shunt.

The Alfa Romeo driver was the unfortunate casualty of a brutal first corner sandwich, which saw Pierre Gasly tag George Russell who then took out Zhou's vehicle, which flipped.

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The Chinese driver flew through the gravel trap upside down before an unlucky bounce flipped his car over the tyre wall, lodging him between it and the barrier.

Thankfully, Zhou was unharmed by the crash, and despite being taken to the medical centre on a stretcher with a neck brace, he was later seen smiling in the paddock.

Russell rushed over to help the no.24 after realising he was stuck in the wall, and called it ‘the scariest thing I’ve ever seen,’ while Gasly later recounted the incident in the media pen.

“It was pretty scary to see what happened,†the Alpha Tauri driver said. “George had a pretty slow get away with the hard tyre, [Nicolas] Latifi came between Zhou and George. 

“I had a good start and tried to follow through and then as we came through turn one he started to slowly drift to the left to open turn one and hit my front tyre. 

“I tried to back out and saw he was going to squeeze me completely, but tried to break but we touched and then after Zhou was upside down so it was pretty scary.â€

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Fan footage from the stands at turn one has since emerged showing just how lucky Zhou was, along with the supporters.

The terrifying images show the 23-year-old halted by the fences separating fans from the danger, before coming to a stop.

The race was quickly red flagged, with drivers returning to the pit lane leaving marshals to attend and clear the event.

Some drivers tried to avoid seeing replays, and had to focus once they heard Zhou was OK.

Daniel Ricciardo told the media: “To be honest once I heard he was OK I was like ‘OK I’ll watch the replays tonight'. 

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“When you also know there’s a 10 minute warning [until the race restarts] you kind of have to just be ready and if you’re thinking about that.. I don’t want to have that thought in my head. 

“I heard he’s OK so that’s positive, I’ll probably watch it tonight and try to understand if there’s something to learn, the fact he got out and he’s OK that’s positive.

“The halo, a double thumbs up so that’s a big positive again.â€

Ricciardo’s McLaren teammate, Lando Norris, said you can’t risk the images ‘messing with your mind’ even though they were scary to watch.

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The Brit said: “It’s scary to watch, scary to look at especially in the middle of a race, it shows the safety which is a very good thing so hopefully they’re back racing next week

“It’s something you never want to watch, I think it’s always important to look at everything at the same time because you want to look at everything and know what goes on, you want to know all those little bits of information as much as you don’t at the same time, because you always think very closely that it could be you in that position. 

“Zhou was just an unfortunate bystander in the incident, he did nothing wrong, it’s the risks we sign up to, we know something can happen every now and then as much as we never want it to happen, so you look at it you analyse it, but you have to get on with your job, you put your helmet on and crack on.

“It goes away, you have to clear it I think, if you think about it then it messes with your mind and you’re losing performance if you’re thinking about something else so you’ve got to clear it.†

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Zhou’s teammate Valtteri Bottas echoed those sentiments saying: “I only saw once he was upside down and landed for the first time and sliding and then I was past it so I didn’t see all of that.

“Obviously you need to get on with it and luckily I was quite quickly messaged that he was fine, so that helps.â€

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Fernando Alonso continued: “It was very spectacular but there’s good safety on these cars because with the momentum that you get there with 100 kilos of fuel and the inertia it was quite a big accident.

“Yeah it was scary, he was very unlucky with the gravel and how the car launched in the last moment, the cars are very safe, there were a lot of accidents this weekend and the drivers are not injured so it’s a very good point.â€