Max Verstappen called George Russell a “d—head” after they collided on the opening lap of the sprint race at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Verstappen was fuming after the Mercedes driver barged past him on the inside at Turn 2, with the contact almost putting the championship leader in the wall. Cameras later revealed the collision had taken a chunk out of the sidepod of Verstappen’s car.
Verstappen was repeatedly broadcast complaining about the move to Red Bull over the radio, at one point saying: “Did he really drive into the side of my car? I don’t know how he can damage my car and still keep position.”
When Verstappen passed Russell later in the race, his race engineer commented that he did so cleanly.
“Yeah, I know how to do that,” Verstappen replied curtly.
After the sprint race was finished Russell went over to Verstappen.
“I didn’t do it on purpose, mate,” Russell said. “I had no grip. I just locked up.”
“We all have no grip!” Verstappen replied. “We all need to leave a little bit of space.”
As Russell walked away, Verstappen called after him and said: “Well next time, expect the same. D—head.”
Russell defended his move after the race and said the outcome would have been the same if their roles had been reversed.
“I was surprised why he was so angry, to be honest,” Russell said. “He still finished the race in P3, it’s a difficult situation, he’s got enough experience to know that if you’re trying to overtake a guy on the outside there’s a risk that the guy on the inside is going to run wide into you and I don’t think anything would have been any different in the positions had been reversed. So, anyway, we all live to tell the tale.”
On the move itself, Russell said he was surprised Verstappen had defended so hard.
“I was down the inside and as a driver you know the risk is when you are on the outside. I’m there to win and I’m not going to hold back just because he is leading the championship. I was quite surprised he was still trying to hold it around the outside, it’s a street circuit, he’s got a lot more to lose than I have. None of the contact was intentional, I was doing my best to have a clean fight, but I was quite surprised that he was kind of resistant. I was on the inside.”
Verstappen was still venting about Russell’s move and their postrace confrontation when he spoke afterward.
“We all struggle with grip,” Verstappen told Sky Sports. “We all have cold tyres, it’s all easy to lock up but in his beautiful way of explaining, ‘aw mate, locked up, look at the onboard [camera],’ it doesn’t make sense. But it’s fine, we still got into P3, got some good points but it is what it is.”
Two-time world champion Fernando Alonso later suggested he could understand Verstappen’s frustration at the move.
“I didn’t see that incident. I wasn’t close enough to judge it. But I saw the sidepod of the car now.
“I think the rules are clear: if you are side-by-side you cannot go to that side that the car is and squeeze him to the wall until he lifts off. So I don’t think we need [changes to the rules], we just need to police it properly.”