Williams to receive compensation for Russell drain cover incident

Organisers of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix have revealed that Williams will receive a full payout for the incident that destroyed George Russell’s chassis in FP1 of last week’s Grand Prix.

A loose drain cover was sucked up and hit Russell’s car, causing the session to be abandoned whilst the other drain covers across the circuit were checked.

Azerbaijan GP promoter Arif Rahimov is looking to get the matter resolved quickly, and he told Motorsport.com: "Obviously this is our fault, we did admit it.

"It's something that we as a circuit shouldn't have allowed. We have checked again our insurance policy and it is fully covered.

"Our legal department is talking to Williams' legal department and they will be reimbursed in full. Obviously there are no hard feelings, as we both understand that it was never meant to be and it was definitely not on purpose. We were very apologetic and we also sent some flowers to say we were really sorry about what happened."

In a similar incident from 2017, Haas had to wait nearly a year before received compensation over a drain cover event in 2017, and Rahimov is keen to avoid a similar thing in this case.

Rahimov added: "We spoke to the insurance company [that] we need to make sure this happens as soon as possible, not [in] a year, because they need this money so they can use it this season. We will push the insurance company to expedite the claim and pay Williams as soon as possible."