Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen said Sunday he “lost all respect” for Mercedes driver George Russell after an incident between them in qualifying cost him pole position on the grid for the Qatar Grand Prix.
Verstappen was 0.055 of a second faster than Russell in Saturday’s qualifying but a stewards’ inquiry gave him a one-place penalty for driving “unnecessarily slowly” in an incident with Russell, who moved up to first on the grid.
Russell complained over the radio that it was “super dangerous” that he’d had to avoid Verstappen ahead of him. Both were summoned to a stewards’ inquiry and Verstappen was sharply critical Sunday of Russell’s approach to the incident.
“Honestly, very disappointing because I think we’re all here, we respect each other a lot and, of course, I’ve been in that (race stewards’) meeting room many times in my life, in my career, with people that have raced and I’ve never seen someone trying to screw someone over that hard,” Verstappen said after Sunday’s race. “For me, I lost all respect.”
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Verstappen suggested he’d been going slowly so as not to impede other drivers.
“I think that’s the first time that in a slow lap someone has been penalized. While, actually, I just tried to be nice. So maybe I shouldn’t be nice,” he said.
The penalty had almost no impact on Sunday’s race as Verstappen overtook Russell into the first corner and went on to take his ninth win of a title-winning season.
“It was a pretty simple overtake for him, which was a bit frustrating for us,” Russell said. “We know Max is a fighter and is aggressive. I expect no different, and I really wanted to go out there and fight with him today.”
Russell finished the race fourth, with a five-second penalty for dropping too far behind the car in front during a safety car period.
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