The dust has settled on another season of Formula 1 and teams and drivers alike can enjoy a long-awaited, well-earned winter rest. It’s time to kick back and relax. Rest and reflect. For two drivers: Max Verstappen and George Russell, this couldn’t be more timely. A spat stemming from a stewards’ hearing in Qatar spilt over to the season finale in Abu Dhabi and threatened to get out of hand.
Let’s catch you up on the story.
Verstappen got in Russell’s way as the Mercedes driver was on his out-lap in qualifying for the Qatar GP. Russell didn’t like that and voiced his displeasure in the subsequent stewards’ hearing. Verstappen got a one-place grid penalty.
The Dutchman definitely didn’t like that.
The Qatar row
Reports of an argument after the hearing motivated the charging Red Bull driver to lead into Turn 1 of the Qatar GP, a race he won in order to make some startling comments in the post-race press conference.
“I was quite surprised when sitting there in the Stewards’ room, what was all going on,” Verstappen said. “Honestly, very disappointing because I think we’re all here, we respect each other a lot and of course, I’ve been in that 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. And that for me… I lost all respect.”
His comments to Dutch broadcaster Viaplay were even more startling: “He’s always polite in front of the cameras, but in person, he is completely different. I don’t want anything to do with him.”
The Dutchman was happy to reiterate his stance a week later in Abu Dhabi, saying: “No, no regrets at all because I meant everything I said and it’s still the same. If I had to do it again, maybe I would have said even more knowing the outcome of the race results. I still can’t believe that someone can be like that in the stewards room. For me, that was so unacceptable because, I mean, we’re all racing drivers. We all have a lot of respect for each other. We even, play sports together, travel together and of course, you have moments where you get together, you crash or whatever, you’re not happy. In my whole career, I’ve never experienced what I have experienced in the stewards room in Qatar and for me, that was really unacceptable.”
Qatar conflict spills over to Abu Dhabi
Russell had his chance to retaliate on the Thursday prior to the season-ending Abu Dhabi GP and his words were scathing.
“I find it all quite ironic, considering Saturday night he said he’s going to purposely go out of his way to crash into me and, quote, ‘put me on my f***ing head in the wall’,” Russell told media including Motorsport Week. “To question somebody’s integrity as a person, while saying comments like that the day before, I find it 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, very first race, the car wasn’t dominant, crashing into Lewis [Hamilton], 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. It’s part of racing, what happens in the steward’s room. You fight hard, but it’s never personal. But you know, he’s taking it too far now.”
Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff also chimed in at this point, responding to comments made by Red Bull boss Christian Horner that Russell was “hysterical” in Qatar.
“Why does he feel entitled to comment about my driver? How does that come? But thinking about it, I’ve spent 90 seconds to think about it… Yapping little terrier. Always something to say.”
Verstappen spoke to Dutch publication De Telegraaf to respond to Russell’s claims he was a bully. The Dutchman doubled down on his criticism towards his Mercedes counterpart. Verstappen said Russell is “just a loser. He lies and pastes all kinds of things together that aren’t true. I only gave my opinion about his behaviour with the stewards. He’s clearly not into that. What he said about 2021, that’s how it went down with the stewards. He insinuates a lot of things that don’t make sense.”
When told Russell was emotional during his media exchange on Thursday Verstappen said “It wasn’t that dramatic at the stewards last week. Maybe next time it will be, then I’ll bring tissues.”
All parties involved up to this point were, in my humble opinion getting carried away. A heated rivalry had become all too personal, beyond the point that it was satisfying fuel for racing drama.
‘I’d rather be a terrier than a wolf’
Luckily, Horner was on hand to put an end to the nonsense with good spirits and good humour.
A day after Wolff called him a “yapping little terrier,” Horner found himself in the Abu Dhabi team representatives press conference with a chance to make his own reply.
“Well, look, I love terriers, I think they’re great dogs and I’ve had four of them,” Horner said. “I had a couple of Airedales, which is the king of the terriers. I had a couple of West Highland terriers called Bernie and Flavio. And the good thing about a terrier is they’re tremendously loyal. I mean, Bernie, he was an aggressive little dog, he’d go for anybody. And Flavio, he was a bit more chilled out, he liked to spend time, you know, he probably ate a bit too much as well. But look, I think to be called a terrier, is that such a bad thing? They’re not afraid of having to go with the bigger dogs. You know, I’d rather be a terrier than a wolf maybe.”
Horner later joked with Sky Sports F1 that it “is pantomime season.” Perhaps he was right.
Russell challenging Verstappen can only be a good thing for F1, but only if it remains respectful and that goes both ways. Let’s not dampen either driver’s fire for if both have a capable car next year, there could be fireworks on track. However, drama on the race track doesn’t need drama to such a degree as we saw in the final two rounds of this year’s campaign.
READ MORE – Christian Horner: Max Verstappen/George Russell conflict should be solved ‘face-to-face’
