Mercedes’ George Russell questioned some “sketchy” defence by McLaren’s Oscar Piastri in the Formula 1 Qatar Grand Prix Sprint.
Piastri got the jump on Russell at the start of the 19-lap Sprint around the Lusail International Circuit on Saturday and the Mercedes driver spent the remainder of the race pursuing his McLaren rival.
On multiple occasions, Russell looked to pass Piastri on the inside of Turn 1 only to have the door closed on him.
Cue a few expletive-laden messages on the Mercedes team radio from Russell, who at one point said: “He f***ing turned into me.”
Asked to give his take on events post-Sprint, Russell said “I need to look back at it, to be honest, and see what it looked like from the outside.
“Obviously, we went wheel-to-wheel and into Turn 1 in one of the laps, I was on the inside and he closed the door pretty aggressively.
“We made contact. It was lucky to both stay in the race there and then a few laps later, you know, I committed to the inside and he pulled across pretty late.
“When you’re doing, you know, 330, 320 [KPH] into Turn 1 and there’s a big speed difference and there’s a closing of the door so late, it’s pretty sketchy.”
Russell taking positives from Qatar Sprint
Russell and Mercedes have carried a large fraction of the pace that saw them dominate the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
The Mercedes driver fancied his chances coming into Qatar and second in Sprint Qualifying and third in the Sprint itself is a handy return.
“I take a lot of positives from the result because I think if Lando [Norris] wasn’t being a team player, I think we’d have got past Oscar and could have had a good fight with Lando,” Russell explained, given Norris dropped back to grant Piastri the aid of DRS in his defence over the Mercedes man.
“If you took Vegas aside, we’d be extremely pleased with the performance we’re showing so far this weekend.
“But as we know in this sport, things change very quick and the Sprint Quali, Sprint race has been great.
“It’s a new session this afternoon. This is the important one and I hope we can have a bit of a repeat of what we did yesterday.”
Russell revealed that ahead of Qualifying for the Qatar GP, he isn’t looking to make major changes to his Mercedes, which has been running well so far.
“It’s generally in a pretty decent window this weekend,” he said.
“We’ve not changed it substantially. We know on these types of circuits where it’s nice and smooth, not many bumps, the car performs well.
“So, you know, we’re in a good rhythm.”
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