Russell suffered injuries during F1 summer break after surfing debut

As per F1 tradition, teams and drivers have several weeks off in August as part of the summer shutdown.

While on holiday with girlfriend Carmen Montero Mundt, Russell uploaded images of himself in the sea.

One post showed him hydrofoil surfboarding and jet skiing.

Russell revealed on his Instagram account that he sustained “a few bruises” as a result.

Speaking ahead of this weekend’s F1 Dutch Grand Prix, Russell shed more light on his time away from F1 and the injuries he sustained.

“It was good to branch out and do these things,” he said. “Historically I never wanted to do other sports, especially in-season, in case of injury. 

“But I felt like I wanted to try something new, and keep my sense alive. A few injuries along the way! But all recovered now. When you fall off a foil board…

“There are a lot of videos which I didn’t post, falling off big-time! I really enjoyed it. For a lot of us, when you’re so focused throughout the year, to have two full weeks of doing nothing, you get a bit bored after a bit of time.

“To have an activity, it was fulfilling to make progress, and to not be falling off by the first days.”

Russell also said he bumped into Daniel Ricciardo during his holiday, jokingly saying that the Australian was behaving himself.

“Daniel was very well-behaved, he’d done his partying in the six months before,” he added.