BREAKING: Russell's verdict after debuting F1's under-the-radar I...

Russell’s verdict after debuting F1’s under-the-radar innovation

George Russell has revealed how he gave one of Formula 1’s latest innovations an under-the-radar race debut, after using a cooling vest en route to his runner-up finish in Bahrain last weekend.

The use of cooling vests had originally been intended to be made mandatory by the FIA this season for races where temperatures got too hot – in a bid to avoid a repeat of the problems drivers faced at the 2023 Qatar Grand Prix.

However, complaints from several drivers about complications of trying to fit the cooling tube elements comfortably in the tight confines of a cockpit forced a change of plan for 2025 only – with the FIA making its use voluntary for those events where a ‘heat-hazard’ is declared.

Any driver who does not use it has to carry an extra 5kg of ballast to offset the extra bulk of the system, faced by those who are wearing it.

In Bahrain, conditions did not hit the 30.5C point where the FIA intervenes, but Russell felt it was hot enough for him to elect to wear it anyway.

Having been happy with it in practice, Russell kept it on for qualifying and the race – with the tubes spotted in photos of him getting out of the car.

“It’s good,” he explained. “What’s great to see is that us as a team, we are trying to push these boundaries and be ahead of the curve.

“It was definitely very noticeable when I turned on the cool water. I think at the start of the race, it was about 16C pumping around my body, which feels quite nice when you’re in a cockpit that’s 50C-plus.

“Of course there’s always room to improve. But for us as a team, they’ve been putting in so much hard work and had the confidence that the system would work that I wanted to give it a whirl. So far, so good.”

But despite being happy with how the vest worked in Bahrain, Russell is not sure if it will be as comfortable for the higher speed demands of Saudi Arabia – so he will run it in Friday practice before deciding what he does for the remainder of the weekend.

“I wasn’t too concerned with the discomfort in Bahrain because it was quite a low-speed circuit, but here with the very fast corners of Jeddah and all of these pipes around my rib area, it could cause me some issues,” he explained.

“So that’s why I’m going to see on Friday. But the system – or at least our system – is very much capable of being raced and used and it clearly worked well in Bahrain.”

While team-mate Kimi Antonelli tested the system briefly on the Friday in Bahrain, he elected not to commit to racing with it because he had limited mileage with it during practice.