George Russell sneaks into F1 Mexico GP grandstands as undercover moment goes viral

With Mercedes giving rookie Frederik Vesti the FP1 seat in Mexico City, George Russell donned a lucha libre mask to watch from the grandstands

George Russell shared a photo with an unusual point of view on the Friday of the Mexico Grand Prix. After taking a photo from the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez grandstands while wearing a lucha libre-style mask, he posted the shot to Instagram.

With the caption, "Haven’t watched F1 cars on track in years, so found a way to sneak into the stands while Fred was driving my car," the photo showed him sitting alongside fans as he went undercover to enjoy the first practice session while Frederik Vesti drove his car alongside Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

Each team must allocate two practice sessions to a rookie driver, with the Brackley outfit handing Russell's W16 to Vesti this weekend in Mexico City. This freed the Briton to watch the action from the grandstands before returning to the cockpit for FP2.

He certainly looked the part in the packed Foro Sol grandstands amid the traditional carnival feel of the event. And the photo gained substantial numbers sitting at over 210,000 likes at the time of writing within an hour of it being posted.

Streams of comments accompanied the post.

"OMG legendary," one commenter wrote, with another adding: "You're so iconic omg."

“Imagine sitting there & George Russell was next to you,” a third wrote.

George Russell, Mercedes

Photo by: Clive Rose / Formula 1 via Getty Images

Despite relinquishing his car to Vesti for FP1, he's ready to give his all this weekend come Saturday's qualifying.

"I think it's so close between the top four teams, to be honest, and come qualifying, you see the gaps are pretty small. Obviously, you've always got one team who are performing better than the rest at a given weekend. You know, Red Bull last week, that was us in Singapore, but we know we're in the fight and if you do a great job in Q3, you can be on the front row or top three and then you're in the fight for the podium.

"So the truth is, I don't really have any expectations, going in with an open mind."

With practice continuing today in the high-altitude conditions, Russell will now focus on making up for the lost time.