George Russell admits ‘s***’ moment as Lewis Hamilton flies by at Azerbaijan GP
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George Russell held his hands up to a ‘s***’ restart after watching team-mate Lewis Hamilton breeze by him at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
The Baku street race was interrupted when Alpha Tauri’s crashed out, prompting a safety period and a flurry of pitstops. All drivers switched to the more durable but less grippy hard tyre, which take time to warm up compared with the softer compounds.
After the Alpha Tauri had been recovered, the race soon resumed but it was a terrible restart for Russell, who was quickly overtaken by fellow Mercedes man Hamilton on the start-finish race.
READ MORE: F1 fans share their Martin Brundle theory as he misses Azerbaijan grid walk
That prompted the 25-year-old to come on the radio and admit: “Well that was a s*** restart. Sorry guys.”
To be fair to Russell, Hamilton was on a charge, with the seven-time world champion soon passing the Aston Martin of Lance Stroll to move up to sixth. But Russell then displayed his in-race intelligence by suggesting Mercedes switch to “plan B” after spotting excessive wear on Stroll’s tyres. That would presumably see a switch to a two-stop strategy.
It has been an eventful weekend for the British driver, who clashed twice with world champion Max Verstappen on the first lap of Saturday’s sprint race, leaving the Red Bull with a large hole in a sidepod.
After the race, Verstappen confronted Russell, calling the King’s Lynn driver a ‘d*** head’. Russell defended his actions though, insisting: “I’m here to fight, I’m here to win and I’m not just going to wave him by because he is Max Verstappen in a Red Bull.
“When he came over to me I thought he was coming to say ‘good battle, nice fight’. I was very surprised at how angry he was. From my side, his position was already lost.
“Ever since eight-year-olds in go-karts, if you are on the inside at the apex of a corner then it’s your corner. If a driver is trying to resist a position on the outside they are taking a huge risk. On lap one, on a street circuit, I was really quite shocked that he was trying to hold the position.”
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- Lewis Hamilton
- Mercedes
- George Russell
- F1
- Formula One
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