George Russell insists he holds no grudges over his clash with Charles Leclerc at the F1 Dutch GP, though he remains adamant the Ferrari driver left the track while making the move.
The pair made contact at Turn 12 around midway through the race, with Leclerc lunging around the outside after the Virtual Safety Car restart. Russell’s Mercedes sustained floor damage as a result, which his team estimated cost him up to three-quarters of a second per lap.
Later on in the race, Leclerc tangled with the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli. The rookie clipped Leclerc’s Ferrari shortly after the latter emerged from the pits, sending him careening into the barriers around the banking at Turn 3. The hit was race-ending for Leclerc, resulting in a double DNF for Ferrari, following Lewis Hamilton’s earlier shunt, which coincidentally also occurred in the same part of the circuit.
While Antonelli was deemed to be completely at fault for the contact with Leclerc, and penalised accordingly—receiving a 10-second time penalty—there was more ambiguity around the Leclerc and Russell incident.
Why Russell feels vindicated
Race control initially flagged that Leclerc had exceeded track limits, but looking at the incident with Russell post-Dutch GP, the stewards declared the available footage “inconclusive” and took no further action. Speaking to the media on Thursday ahead of this week’s F1 Italian GP, Russell explained why Mercedes chose not to pursue the matter.
“From my side, with how things panned out in the race I didn’t really want to pursue something further because obviously he didn’t score in the race,” he said.
“I was pretty confident he was off the track but at the time there was no clear evidence, so I was kind of in agreement or understood from the stewards’ standpoint that there was categorically at that time no evidence showing he was off the track, even if you could kind of work out that he was.”
While Russell accepted the stewards’ stance in the moment, he believes that subsequent images vindicate his view. “Since then, with the photos that have come out, it was clear that he was off the track. It’s often the case [that] evidence comes up later.”
Russell stated he had no lingering frustrations, saying: “I don’t feel sore about it whatsoever because, as I said, I actually benefited from what happened and it all worked out as it should have in the end.”
The move was “on the limit” but fair, says Leclerc
Leclerc offered his own perspective on the controversial moment during media day at Monza, defending the move as hard but fair wheel-to-wheel racing.
“I mean, I’m satisfied with the outcome for sure, because I wouldn’t have wanted to get a penalty,” he said. “But that’s always depending on the side you are looking the things at.”
He added: “I thought it was a great overtake. Was it on the limit? It definitely was. Was I the only one at fault? I don’t think so. And this is how the rules are written.
“So we’ve had this discussion and obviously the steward took the decision of not giving me a penalty, which again, I mean, when things are on the limit, it’s always going to split opinions. And I’m okay with that. I’m happy with the way it went. And I was very happy with the overtake as well.”
