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George Russell delivered a flat-out response to criticism from Max Verstappen, claiming the Red Bull driver told him he would "put me on my f***ing head in the wall" before the Qatar Grand Prix.
Verstappen received a one-place grid penalty for impeding Russell in qualifying in Qatar and lost pole position to the Mercedes driver. One day later, Verstappen comfortably retook the lead on the first lap and converted it into victory while Russell ended up fourth.
But Verstappen was still furious with what had happened on Saturday night, saying he had "lost all respect" for Russell as he'd "never seen someone trying to screw someone over that hard" in the stewards' room.
Russell launched into a detailed response during a session with selected media including The Race on the eve of the Abu Dhabi GP.
"I find it all quite ironic considering Saturday night he said he's going to purposefully go out of his way to crash into me and, quote, '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 very ironic.
"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 car wasn't dominant, crashing into Lewis, slamming his team.
"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 stewards room, you fight hard, but it's never personal.
"But he’s taken it too far now."
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Verstappen did not immediately want to reply to Russell's comments.
When asked if he was planning to speak to Verstappen to clear the air, Russell said: "I've got no interest in talking to him about it because I don't have any interest in making amends because I think it's his problem to deal with and I’m not going to lose any sleep over it."
Russell questioned why other drivers don't stand up to Verstappen, with the exception of his outgoing Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton during the pair's titanic 2021 title battle.
"I just don't know why other drivers, when they've been in this battle with him, have made it so easy and just let it be," Russell added.
"Lewis is a world champion who I aspire to be like. And he's the gold standard role model that younger kids should be looking up to and the way Lewis dealt with that championship fight, he was hard, he was aggressive, he was always respectful and he never went beyond the line.
"You can go beyond the line in making a slight misjudgement, but going out of your way to say you'll purposefully crash into someone and put them on their head is beyond the line."
Verstappen stands by comments
When asked about them in the pre-Abu Dhabi press conference, Verstappen said he stood by his comments and hinted he might have said even more.
"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," Verstappen said.
"I still can't believe that someone can be like that in the stewards' room. For me, that was so unacceptable, because we're all racing drivers, we all have a lot of respect for each other. We even play sports together. You 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."
Russell expands
Russell later expanded on the context of Verstappen's comments.
"That was straight after the - semi-privately - straight out of the stewards," Russell said when asked if the comments were made in private.
"He said, 'I don't know why you'd 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'll purposefully go out my way, put you on your f***ing head in the wall'.
"I don't understand why he was so unnecessarily aggressive and violent in that whole regard."
Russell also said those comments were discussed during the pre-race drivers' parade, something eagle-eyed social media users spotted on Sunday.
"I've known Max for a long time. I know his attitude and I think people within the paddock know his attitude but it’s not my position to throw him under the bus," Russell said.
"And I almost joked with him on the drivers' parade about this with Carlos [Sainz] and Checo [Sergio Perez]. I came around, put my arm around him and laughed, 'How are you doing today?' and I said to Carlos jokingly, 'Listen to what this guy said to me yesterday'.
"But I could see it in his eyes that he means it. The start in Qatar was pretty tame, we made it a bit easy for him, he just made a very good start. Simple as that.
"Even Carlos said to Max, 'Look, you'd do the exact same thing in the stewards' room'. He did the same on Sunday, there's nothing wrong with that. Lando [Norris] kept it flat through the yellow flags, he raised it on the radio, it’s not personal, it's just part of racing.
"If you see a competitor not following the rules, you're going to raise that."
Russell said he has chosen to take a public stand now because Verstappen had "disrespected him in the media" and because "we've got a guy who's on the top of this sport who feels he's above the law".
"I honestly just want to set the record straight, to be honest, because it's just a total double standard that he has for the regulations and just thinking that he is above everybody else," he said.
"So it's not me trying to assert my leadership style or anything. It's just somebody has come out and said that I'm a two-faced motherf***er.
"And he's entitled to his own opinions, but coming out and saying that publicly and slamming me publicly; I'm just not going to accept it and I'm going to tell people what the reality was."
Russell added: "I admire his on-track battles and when he's hard and aggressive, but what we saw in the end of the season in '21 or what we saw in Mexico with Lando, they weren't hard, aggressive manoeuvres.
"They were do-or-die, I'm willing to take this guy out. Which I don't think is the way we go racing."
'Max is beatable'
Russell said he would not let Verstappen’s comments "change the way that I go about my business" and said he believes he can beat Verstappen should Mercedes provide a car capable of doing so.
"I don't want to make this anything about me vs Max or whatever. But at the end of the day, since Austria he has won the same number of races as myself, as Lewis, as Lando, and as Charles," Russell said.
"Max was unbeatable for two years because he had the most dominant car and his team-mate was finishing second; nobody could get close to him.
"At the start of this year, he was unbeatable. But when there's equal machinery, he is beatable.
"And I'm not going to accept him throwing remarks and comments around like this like they're nothing.
"We've got to remember we are pinnacle of this sport. This weekend for example, in Mercedes we've got two junior drivers here, they're looking up to us. That is not what we should be inspiring into the eight-, nine-, 10-year-olds who watch Formula 1.
"I've got my nephew - eight years old - just starting to get into go-karting, and watches my every race. That is not how it should be."
