George Russell points to life-changing moments pushed him to be a prominent part of GPDA

George Russell has opened up on what pushed him to be one of the more prominent parts of the GPDA, where he spearheads the drivers' association, and revealed that it came down to him closely witnessing some life-changing incidents. F1 and racing in general are and will continue to be dangerous motorsports where a mistake could potentially be life-changing.

The last F1 driver to lose his life due to an on-track incident was Jules Bianchi in 2014, but there have been other incidents in junior categories as well. The most recent death was of Anthoine Hubert at Spa in 2019 in Formula 2. Hubert was one of the contemporaries of a lot of drivers on the grid as well.

George Russell, on his part, has witnessed the life-changing accident of Billy Monger, with whom he was teammates in Formula 4. Monger ended up losing both his legs due to the accident, and Russell had watched Hubert's crash live as well.

Talking to Motorsport, the driver revealed that being witness to some of the life-changing incidents has meant that he's more aware of how much things could go wrong for anyone, and hence, if he can do something to make a difference, he will. He said,

"I'm not chasing to leave any legacy. That's never been the intention. It's just that if I see an opportunity to improve something, I want to speak about it, especially if it comes to track safety or car safety. In 2012 I was team-mates with Billy Monger [who lost his legs in a British F4 crash in 2017] and had a close relationship with him."

He added,

"Seeing that crash live, and then watching Anthoine [Hubert]'s crash [at Spa 2019 in F2], I was watching that live. It was sickening to watch. When you experience things like this with people who you know so well, and you believe you have ideas that can help improve the safety or prevent that from happening, then you naturally want to share it."

George Russell talks about the harrowing incident of Romain Grosjean in 2020

During the start of the 2020 F1 Bahrain GP, Romain Grosjean was caught up in an incident where the entire car caught fire and led to a massive inferno. George Russell also remembered that moment and talked about how he was very close to Grosjean on the track when he had his spin. He said,

"Again, Romain Grosjean's crash [in Bahrain 2020], I saw that. He was in front of me and I passed him, and I still see the image in my head now. I looked in my mirror, and all I could see was flames. It took over my whole mirror."

He added,

"That could have happened to anyone. It could have happened to the greatest driver in the world. That's just the danger we face. So, I think that's probably why I wanted to be more involved than not."

At the moment, George Russell is one of the key members of the GPDA alongside Carlos Sainz, and the Driver Association has been quite vocal in recent times about a variety of issues.