“From my point of view, I was just rammed,” said George Russell when he stood in the paddock of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya and talked about the excitement of the great prize of Spain: the collision with Max Verstappen, which could still be expensive for the Formula 1 world champion. “It felt like it was intentional. Mercedes pilot. In fact, camera images and data recordings speak for Verstappen the carambolage on Sunday willingly brought about. “But are you surprised?” Asked Russell, who interviewed him for “F1 TV”: “For the protocol,” said Russell, “you shake your head. Look, then Max runs.” Two laps before the end, Verstappen at the wheel of his Red Bulls was carried away to a foul that is not good for a four -time world champion. With the ramming against Russell, a skirmish escalated that outsilated the next double success of the McLaren team-Piatri won ahead of Lando Norris. “There was a certain frustration,” said Red Bull’s motorsport consultant Helmut Marko about the incident, “who is also noticeable in the driving style.” “That was terrible” the immediate consequence of the dropout? No disqualification that the former world champion Nico Rosberg demanded as a TV expert (“that was terrible”). But ten penalty seconds and therefore only tenth place in Spain for Verkehrsrowdy Verstappen, which also collected three extra points in the Formula 1 sinner card. Verstappen is now at eleven out of twelve permitted points. If he will be conspicuous again before two points expire after twelve months at the end of June, the Dutchman threatens the lock for a race. External content activate the events in Spain when the Grand Prix took up five tours before Ultimo after a Safety car phase. For Verstappen, who drove in third place, everything went wrong. First he almost screeched the target curve from the slopes when his Red Bull racer suddenly overturned violently. Verstappen won the control masterfully, but apparently lost mastery even about it. The champion between genius and madness. First of all, he, in vain, easy contact with Charles Leclerc for the foul. The Ferrari driver passed Verstappen right away when the route commissioners were cleaned. Russell also sucked up in the slipstream, positioned himself to the right of the four -time world champion, who, since no other rubbers were left, was, unlike his opponents on the harder tire mixture, which hardly offered grip. A serious disadvantage. “I was at the front, he pushed me off!” Both on the same way, offset on the outside, the soft tires on the inside, so they rest into the first curve to the right. Contact! The back wheels of the racing bikes touched each other. Verstappen turned, turned into the emergency exit, reduced the harassment, easily pulled back on the quick lane in front of Russell. Now the trouble really started. Activating external content would racing commissioners judge that Verstappen had illegally gained an advantage? The feared Red Bull and instructed Verstappen to let Russell present. Preventive. “What?!”, The world champion scolded the radio, “I was in front, he pushed me off!” – “We advise you to let him through,” replied the engineer. A mistake, as it turned out later. Russell immediately shot over. Understood? Nevertheless. Verstappen had something else. He activated external content, steered on the collision course, and rumbled five at the beginning of curve, a knick, at about 100 speed, straight in Russell’s silver arrow. Hit on the left front wheel! But both racing cars largely maintained shape and version, only Verstappen was now back in front of Russell. It was only a few hundred meters later that he finally let the Englishman, who finally finished fourth. “Next time bring handkerchiefs with” McLaren-Pilot Lando Norris, when he saw the scene at the finish: “I did that too,” he said, laughed and added: “With Mario Kart!” So the video game in which unpleasant rivals can be slowed down with banana peels and turtle armor. However, the McLaren duo refrained from a judgment, and team boss Andrea Stella also fended off. Even Mercedes racing director Toto Wolff held back, told the Austrian ORF that something like Verstappen should not be done on the race track. The 27 -year -old Verstappen saw no foul. It was only a “misjudgment”, the Dutch said nothing more. So no intention? “Does that play a role?” He asked back in a variety of ways. When he heard Russell assessed the collision, he mocked: “Okay, I’ll bring him handkerchiefs next time.” It was not the first time that the two pilots hit each other. Two years ago in Azerbaijan, Verstappen scolded the Englishman a weak head because he had driven him into the car at the time. Last December, the Qatar Grand Prix crashed after an incident in training. At the time, Russell claimed that Verstappen had threatened to deliberately push him off the route. Verstappen denied having expressed himself in this way. He called Russell a liar that he had lost any respect. “Cuts into his own meat” “Max is a fantastic driver,” said Russell on Sunday in Catalonia, “so many people look up. At first, neither of them wanted to know about a pronunciation. “He has his point of view and I have mine,” said Verstappen, who is already missing 49 points on the World Cup leading Piatri. The bitter irony for the world champion? The order to let Russell prefer to leave the right of way-the command that was presumably so angry with the champion that he forgot himself shortly afterwards-if it had not needed it. More on the topic of the topic, the race management shared around an hour and a half after the end of the Grands Prix, nothing could come to owe when he chose the emergency output in the bike-am-wheel duel with Russell. Rather, Russell briefly lost control of the Mercedes and forced Verstappen from the route. Ouch. The predictive obedience of the Red Bull team became a boomerang.
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