The beef between George Russell and Max Verstappen is not yet over ahead of the F1 Canadian GP of this weekend. At least, Russell had some additional comments regarding their get-together during the Spanish GP of a fortnight ago.
After Verstappen had a very difficult restart on the hard tyres the two came together in the first turn, forcing the Dutchman to take the long way around. Red Bull then urged their star driver to let Russell go by, which Verstappen did not take kindly.
During the first attempt Verstappen hit Russell in a deliberate fashion, something the Briton claims he had “never seen in F1”. The move resulted in a 10 second time-penalty for Verstappen and another three penalty points on his super licence. This results in a total of 11 points, which means the reigning champion is one point away from a race ban.
Race ban not ‘unjust’
“If he gets to 12 points it [a ban] wouldn’t be unjust,” the Mercedes driver said. “At the end of the day, that’s why the penalty points are there.
Since the introduction of the penalty points only one driver was suspended, last year when Kevin Magnussen had to sit out the Azerbaijan GP.
“If you keep driving recklessly you will accumulate points, and get punished with a race ban. You’ve got it in your own hands and it doesn’t go without risk.“
Russell feels Verstappen did not intend to crash into him, but rather tried to intimidate him.
“He was trying to run me off the road. I don’t think he was trying to intentionally crash into me. He wanted to just sort of scare me a bit, but he just misjudged it. Again, it wasn’t going to scare me, it was just all a bit surprising.
“I’m not looking for an apology. His actions cost him and they benefited me, so I should be almost thanking him.
“Obviously I’d be feeling very differently if it took me out of the race. But it is good to see that he took accountability. I was a bit surprised about that.”
Verstappen not the boss, his father is
Ahead of the Canadian GP Russell does not think Verstappen will change his approach to racing, despite being only the
“It depends on the circumstances, doesn’t it? When you are going for a championship, it’s slightly different.
“That’s why I believe he wasn’t intentionally trying to crash into me. He was just trying to get his elbows out and show who’s boss.
“But he got it wrong. Jos [Verstappen] is the boss. I’m going to continue racing exactly the same way because at the end of the day that’s what I did last week and I benefited from it.”
Rivals bump into eachother at the airport
Despite Verstappen eventually owning up to his mistake, he initially took a jab at Russell by sarcastically offering the three-time Grand Prix winner a tissue.
“That was quite funny to be fair and I did have a giggle about that,” Russell said.
“We bumped into each other at the airport on Sunday morning when I was going to Roland Garros.
“To be honest, I totally forgot about Barcelona because he was there with his newborn [baby], and we were at the security machine. He just had a quick chat and then he was busy folding the pram down to put it through the machine.”
