Max Verstappen barged into George Russell on the penultimate lap of the Spanish Grand Prix, resulting in the four-time world champion being given a 10-second penalty
George Russell has slammed Max Verstappen after the pair’s Formula 1 feud reared its ugly head at the Spanish Grand Prix. As Russell and Verstappen battled for fourth place at the start of the penultimate lap in Barcelona, the pair made contact and the four-time world champion was forced into the run-off area, but stayed ahead the Mercedes driver.
After being told by his race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, to give the place back to Russell, Verstappen barged into the Brit as he attempted an overtake. The move left fans and pundits shocked and become the story of the race which was won by McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, who was followed by team-mate Lando Norris and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
Verstappen eventually let Russell by before the stewards slapped him with a 10-second penalty, resulting in the Red Bull star finishing 10th. After the race, Russell was asked about the move and if it was deliberate.
“I was as surprised as you guys probably were. I’ve seen those kind of manoeuvres before on simulator games and in go-karting, but never in Formula 1,” the 27-year-old told Sky Sports.
“Ultimately, I came home in P4 and he came home in P10 so I don’t really know what was going through his mind. It felt deliberate in the moment. So yeah, I was a bit surprised.”
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Verstappen and Russell were involved in a bitter war of words after an incident during qualifying at last year’s Qatar Grand Prix. Russell claimed that the Dutchman said to him: “He was going to purposefully go out of his way to crash into me and ‘put me on my f*** ing head in the wall.”
In response following a meeting in the stewards’ room, Verstappen revealed that he’d ‘lost all respect for Russell’, adding that he was a ‘loser’ and a ‘bully’. But Russell didn’t want get into the wider implications of the pair’s latest clash on Sunday.
“Right now I’m not going to give it any though, because we’ve got our own problems to deal with which is making our car go faster,” he continued. “We were destined to finish P4 today, ahead of Charles and behind Max, but obviously the safety car in the end shuffled things up. It’s down to the stewards to decide whether it was deliberate or not.”
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Russell went on to say that Verstappen’s behaviour lefts him down. “Max is such an amazing driver and so many people look up to him,” he noted. “It’s just a shame that something like that continues to occur, it just seems totally unnecessary and it never seems to benefit himself.
“I’m too close to give my opinion on bealf of the other drivers, but like in Austin last year you see some of the best moves ever, and they you go to Mexico and he lets himself down a bit. And then in Imola, one of the best moves we’ve seen in a long time, and then this happens.
“Like I said, it cost his team a lot of points and Charles and I actually dropped off like a stone on those last two laps. He could probably have come back to fight for the podium. But I’m not going to lose sleep.”
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