‘Bully’ Verstappen threatened to ‘put my head in the wall’ claims rival

A furious George Russell has hit back at Max Verstappen, describing Red Bull’s quadruple world champion as a “bully” who thinks he is “above the law” and alleging that Verstappen threatened to put his “f---ing head in the wall” in Qatar.

Russell’s explosive allegation came after Verstappen doubled down on his criticism of the Mercedes driver following the Qatar Grand Prix last Sunday, saying if anything he had not been strident enough last weekend and calling the Englishman a “liar” and a “loser”.

George Russell and Max Verstappen at Qatar Grand Prix.Credit: Getty Images

“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 said when asked about Verstappen’s comments. The English driver added he could “see in [Verstappen’s] eyes” during a heated exchange in the drivers’ parade the next day that he “meant it”.

“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.”

Russell later expanded on his thoughts in a media huddle in the Mercedes motorhome.

Flanked by his team principal Toto Wolff, the 26-year-old said people had been “bullied by Max for years now” and he was not going to stand for it any longer.

Mercedes driver George RussellCredit: Getty Images

“He cannot deal with adversity,” Russell said. “He’s had the most dominant car in recent history for two and a half years. But the second he does not have the fastest car, he slams his whole team and he loses the plot. Straight away after that race, 25 per cent of his engineering team were sending their CVs to Mercedes, to McLaren, to Aston Martin, because they said they can’t deal with a guy like that.”

Asked later about that claim, Verstappen told Dutch journalists that it was false and described Russell as a “loser”.

Russell, though, had plenty of other claims. He said Verstappen had been “enabled” because people were not prepared to stand up to him.

‘People have been bullied by Max for years now’

George Russell

“Lewis [Hamilton] stood up to him in 2021. And Lewis lost that championship unfairly. Can you imagine if the roles were reversed? Max losing that championship in the manner that Lewis lost that championship? I mean, [former race director Michael] Masi would be fearing for his life.”

Russell’s verbal attack also covered Verstappen’s reputation for deploying controversial tactics when battling other drivers, highlighting infamous clashes with Hamilton three years ago and Lando Norris earlier this season.

“I feel he has disrespected me as a driver,” added Russell. “I’ve known him for 12 years. We’ve had respect with one another beforehand. We’ve never had any collisions… but we’ve got a guy who’s on the top of this sport and who feels he’s above the law. I don’t think that’s right.

Russell and Verstappen before qualifying in Qatar.Credit: Getty Images

“I admire his on-track battles, and when he is hard and aggressive. But what we saw at the end of the season in ’21, or what we saw in Mexico with Lando [Norris], 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 should go racing.”

The increasingly ugly row stems from an incident which took place in qualifying for last weekend’s race in Doha.

Verstappen was stripped of pole position after being accused of driving “unnecessarily slowly” on the racing line in front of Russell while both were on slow laps, a sanction which lifted the Mercedes driver into pole.

After victory on Sunday, the Red Bull driver accused Russell of “trying hard to screw him over” in the stewards’ room in order to earn him a penalty and said he had “lost all respect” for the Englishman.

Any suggestion the two might have smoothed things over in the intervening period were swiftly put to bed when Verstappen faced the media on Thursday an hour before Russell spoke ahead of the 2024 season finale in Abu Dhabi.

Asked in the official press conference whether he had any regrets about his Qatar outburst, the newly crowned four-time world champion replied: “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. 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, you travel together.”

The London Telegraph