Williams' George Russell was a ball of fury in the aftermath of the mid-race crash that eliminated him and Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas from the Emilia Romagna GP. The pair collided while fighting over ninth position, with Russell drawing alongside the Mercedes into Tamburello before the Williams driver appeared to lose control and slammed into the Mercedes. The race was red-flagged due to the severity of the crash damage, and both drivers were uninjured. Russell was furious over team radio, shouting angrily about Bottas' part in the crash, and was unrepentant after the race. "I was coming up on Valtteri massively fast, I have a slipstream, I have the DRS," Russell explained to Sky Sports. "And just as I pulled out, he jolted very, very slightly to the right, which is a tactical defense that drivers in the past used to do. Like a Verstappen move in 2015. "There is a gentlemen's agreement that that is not what you do, because it's incredibly dangerous. In completely dry conditions, I'd have been fine. But it just put me on to the wet patch, and I lost it. So, an unfortunate incident but we're going 200mph, you need to respect the speed and the conditions." Russell could be seen running over to Bottas' wrecked Mercedes, and appeared to admonish the Finn, including a tap of Bottas' helmet as he turned away angrily. Asked to explain what had happened in the exchange, Russell revealed what he'd said. "I said you're trying to kill us both. It's dumb, you know it's wet, and you know I'm going 340 kilometres [an hour] and now you're trying to kill us both," Russell said. "We're going incredibly fast. We know the conditions. Yeah, in his eyes, He's not really fighting for anything in his eyes. P9 is nothing for him but, for us, it's everything. "I'm going for the move, the move would have been absolutely easy. There's absolutely no reason to jolt like that. It's like I said, it's a gentlemen's agreement between the drivers because we've always said it's going to cause a massive collision one day. And here we are."
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The incident that brought out red flags in Imola 🚩 #ImolaGP 🇮🇹 #F1 pic.twitter.com/Z18dCPXwOZ — Formula 1 (@F1) April 18, 2021
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