George Russell lodges X-rated Lewis Hamilton complaint as Mercedes play peacemaker | F1 | Sport
George Russell was furious with Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton during Q3 at the Spanish Grand Prix on Saturday. The seven-time world champion frustrated his colleague on the first out lap, leading to a sweary radio outburst.
On his way back into the garage after his first Q3 run, Russell dialled into the team radio to fume: “What the f*** was Lewis doing prepping that lap?”
His race engineer immediately came onto the button to calm down the situation, hitting back: “He just… it’s fine. We’ll talk about it afterwards. Head in the game.”
When Russell did get his ‘head in the game’, he was unable to extend his impressive qualifying record against Hamilton. The 26-year-old had out-qualified his rival in eight of the opening nine races, but it was the seven-time world champion who had the upper hand in the final runs.
Hamilton took the chequered flag in P3, three-tenths down on polesitter Lando Norris and second-placed Max Verstappen. Russell will line up alongside his team-mate in fourth place.
Addressing his qualifying session with Sky Sports F1, Russell was disappointed. “I think the gap to Lando and Max was probably a little bit bigger than we expected,” he admitted.
“I don’t think Lewis and I put the perfect lap together, we did good laps, but on a challenging track like this, you have to put the tyres in the right window and just find those last couple of tenths and that is what Lando managed to do today and we didn’t.”
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