Max Verstappen says he has lost respect for George Russell after the Mercedes driver successfully argued for his rival to get a grid penalty in Qatar.
Russell came across a slow-moving Verstappen late in Q3, and highlighted his frustrations on the radio.
He continued on that theme at the subsequent hearing, where Verstappen was found guilty of driving excessively slowly and docked one place, which handed pole to Russell.
“I couldn’t believe that I got it,” the Dutchman said of the penalty. “But in a way, I was also like, yeah, I’m not surprised anymore in the world that I live in. So, you’re not happy with it.
“But at one point or another, you have to just turn the page. But it wasn’t very enjoyable to see that happen, because I think that’s the first time that in a slow lap someone has been penalised.
“While actually, I just tried to be nice. So maybe I shouldn’t be nice. But the thing is that well, being nice, because at the end of the season, everything is more or less decided, for me especially, I didn’t want to screw anyone over to prepare their lap.
“And by doing that, being nice, basically you get a penalty. And that’s what I tried to explain as well. But I just felt like I was talking to a brick wall. So there’s not much that was possible for whatever reason.”
He added: “I think I really spoke about valid reasons of what happened and it was clear cut that around me there were different scenarios going on as well, with people having colder tyres and stuff so they had to push anyway, and I didn’t want to then cause a scene into a last corner. and then no one had a lap. So very, very surprising.”
Verstappen made his thoughts about Russell clear.
“I was quite surprised when sitting there in the stewards’ room, what was all going on. 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 I’ve raced, and I’ve never seen someone trying to screw someone over that hard. And that for me… I lost all respect.”
Verstappen got his revenge by passing Russell at the start and going on to win the race in dominant fashion, having been chased by Lando Norris until the McLaren driver landed a penalty.
“It’s never straightforward,” he said. “I think in the first stint as well, with Lando being there, honestly, I think the gap has been between 1.6 and 1.9 seconds, the whole stint, and you can’t afford to make a mistake.
“And he didn’t, I didn’t, and we were just pushing flat out at one point. And it was honestly really enjoyable to drive because, of course, most of the races that we do, the tyres deg and you have to manage a lot. It felt like here you could push a bit harder and the track as well, the layout, I enjoy a lot.
“The grip is very good on the track. So yeah, that was a great stint. The second stint was a bit more stop-start with the safety cars involved and then of course the temperature as well in the tyres was very tricky, because my middle restart wasn’t particularly great.
“I tried something else, but the tyres basically were too cold, so I just kept on sliding and having no traction. So that was not ideal.
“Besides that, the pace was good. A dry race like this for us has been a long time, so I’m very happy with the improvements that we made compared to the start of the weekend.”
Verstappen was pleased to see the RB20 return to winning form in normal conditions.
“The last few races in the dry, we haven’t been particularly strong on managing the tyres,” he said.
“And that’s why I was a little bit careful after qualifying. But yeah, it’s been nice. I mean, it’s still not where I would like it to be in terms of the behaviour of the car compared to, let’s say, last year.
“But at least now we are back in a fight to win races. So if we can just learn from this year’s car, take the positives, of course, from also last year and try to build a better car, I’m sure that we can be again very competitive next year.”
