"I got the biggest smack through my body, the whole engine turned off, it's ruined the floor and I'm a bit worried for the chassis now," Russell said on Sky Sports.
"The session won't be going green until it's sorted. We were on the normal racing line and it's completely ruined our session.
"It's not what we need at this stage."
Then things went from dangerous to downright farcical as stewards rushed out onto the track to begin the clean up process.
A crane truck was brought out onto the circuit to help remove the stranded Williams, but there was just one thing in the way.
After loading the car up, the truck took off down the straight heading back for the pit lane. The driver unfortunately forgot about height limits and slammed the crane into the bridge going over the track.
Oil began to spew out of the crane and onto the Williams in what was labelled as being even potentially more dangerous.
"It's a calamity of errors," says Christian Horner on the Sky F1 pit-wall. "I've never seen that before."
The damage from the manhole cover slamming into the bottom of the Williams clearly did a heap of damage, as deputy team principal Claire Williams confirmed.
"It's clear from the data and what everyone can see that there is a lot of damage to the floor of the car and who knows what else.
"We'll need to wait and see until we get it back to the extent of that.
"We'll have to wait and see if that chassis is repairable or if we have to go to our third chassis.
"It's clearly not what we want and it's not what you expect from a Formula 1 track. These drain covers are supposed to be bolted down.
"We'll be picking that up with race control."
Williams later confirmed the damaged car required a chassis change which means Russell, due to regulations, won't be able to run until the third practice session on Saturday.
The first practice session was eventually abandoned as the track not only needed to be cleared, but the oil needs to be cleaned up along with a thorough check of the 320 manhole covers around the circuit.
Lewis Hamilton clearly wasn't impressed the manhole cover wasn't checked, but was happy to make the most of the time off.
"How could they not have checked and sealed the drains. Oh well, just gives me extra time to catch up on Game of Thrones," Hamilton wrote via his Instagram Stories.
