Tempers Flare As Bosses Enter Verstappen-Russell Fight

Tempers are flaring as Formula 1’s longest-ever season winds down in Abu Dhabi.

A week after their spat in Qatar, Max Verstappen and George Russell are still at each other’s throats. Lando Norris, however, can only giggle at the spat.

“Yes, the two you’re thinking about were sat as far away from each other as possible,” the McLaren driver revealed as he posted a photo on Instagram of an end-of-season dinner involving all the drivers.

Mercedes’ Russell faced the media on Thursday and revealed that Verstappen had threatened him ahead of the Qatar GP. In another part of the paddock, the Red Bull driver accused Russell of “lying” in the stewards’ room last Saturday to get him demoted from pole position.

“I find his comments pretty ironic when he comes out and says ‘I’m going to purposefully crash into you, I’m going to put you on your fu*king head in the wall’,” Russell said.

Russell, a senior director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, said the quadruple world champion is a “bully” and vowed to “stand up to a guy like this before it gets out of control”.

He even accused Verstappen of “doing everything possible” earlier this year to oust Red Bull team boss Christian Horner, and thinks “25 percent of his engineering team” sent out CVs during the course of the fraught season.

“Can you imagine Max losing the title in the way Lewis (Hamilton) lost it (in 2021),” Russell said. “(Michael) Masi would be fearing for his life.”

Verstappen also had both barrels blazing at the 2024 season finale, calling Russell a “backstabber” and “loser”. “But he can say whatever he wants,” the Dutchman told Dutch reporters.

“I’ll probably bring some tissues for him next time.”

The spat has drawn in the drivers’ respective team bosses, Toto Wolff (Mercedes) and Horner (Red Bull) – where there is already no love lost. In Qatar, Horner had departed the paddock by describing Russell as “hysterical”.

On Thursday, Wolff intervened in Russell’s meeting with the press by calling Horner a “yapping little terrier”.

“It’s actually a matter between the drivers,” said the Austrian. “I didn’t really want to get involved. But when the other team boss describes George as hysterical, that’s crossing a line for me. How dare you speak like that about my driver’s state of mind?”

As far as former F1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya is concerned, however, it is Verstappen who has come out on top amid the saga. According to him, his threat of a crash with Russell at the start in Qatar worked out perfectly.

“Even George said he thought there would be a crash. So, in his head, he gave up as soon as the lights went out,” said the Colombian.

“But I think if it was Hamilton, he could have lived with a crash. That’s why Lewis has seven titles, Max has four titles, and the rest have nothing.

“But if you put George in that situation, he won’t want to crash. Lando Norris won’t want to crash either. But Oscar Piastri might. Carlos Sainz might. But Charles Leclerc wouldn’t crash – he’d go on the radio and complain that this is the most unfair thing on the planet, just like Lando. It’s just their nature.”