ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — George Russell has escalated his war of words with Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen, claiming the Dutchman said “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.'”
Verstappen lost pole position in Qatar a week ago when he went to the stewards for blocking Russell during qualifying, with both drivers going to the stewards room to discuss the incident.
A one-place grid penalty dropped him behind Russell, but Verstappen still won the race.
After doing so, he called out Russell in TV interviews, saying he “lost all respect” for the Mercedes driver and accused him of acting friendly in public and then lobbying for his penalty in the stewards room.
In an interview to Dutch TV, Verstappen accused Russell of being two-faced, adding: “You know what it is? He acts decent in front of the camera here, but when you talk to him personally, he is a different person … I can’t stand that. In that case you can better f— off.”
But Russell said that was only half the story.
Speaking to a small group of media including ESPN on Thursday, Russell said Verstappen threatened to physically hurt him during the race once they left the stewards’ room.
“I find it all quite ironic seeing as Saturday night he said 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,'” Russell said.
“So to question somebody’s integrity as a person, while saying comments like that the day before, I find is very ironic, and I’m not going to sit here and accept it.
“People have been bullied by Max for years now, and you can’t question his driving abilities. But he cannot deal with adversity.
“Whenever anything has gone against him — Jeddah ’21, Brazil ’21 — he lashes out. Budapest this year, the very first race the car wasn’t dominant, crashing into Lewis, slamming his team … As I said, for me, those comments on Saturday night and Sunday were totally disrespectful and unnecessary.
“Because what happens on track, we fight hard, that’s part of racing. What happens in the stewards’ room, you fight hard, but it’s never personal. But he’s taken it too far now.”
Explaining the altercation in more detail, Russell said: “[It was] to me privately, yeah, straight out of the stewards. He said, ‘I don’t know why you would want to screw me like this, I’m so disappointed in you. I was going to not even race you tomorrow, I was going to let you by, but now if I have to, I will purposely go out of my way to put you on your f—ing head in the wall.’ So, I mean… as I said, I don’t understand why he was so unnecessarily aggressive and violent in that regard.”
