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Max Verstappen

Verstappen launches scathing attack on ‘lying’ Russell

Max Verstappen is still furious at George Russell's actions after qualifying for the Qatar Grand Prix.

Verstappen Russell Qatar Quali
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To news overview © Red Bull Content Pool

Max Verstappen has accused George Russell of lying to F1 stewards in a scathing attack on the Mercedes driver after their Qatar controversy.

In qualifying at Lusail, Verstappen was found by the stewards to have driven unnecessarily slowly and blocked Russell, even though both drivers were on cool down laps at the time and not on flying laps.

For this, Verstappen was handed a one-place grid penalty, losing pole to Russell, and lashed out at the Briton for his actions in the stewards room, saying he had lost "all respect" for Russell after the Red Bull driver won the race.

When asked about the incident ahead of the season-finale in Abu Dhabi, Verstappen doubled down and accused Russell of lying to the stewards.

"I have no regrets at all, because I meant everything I said," Verstappen told media including RacingNews365.

"If I had to do it again, maybe I would have said even more, knowing the outcome of the race results, 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 are all racing drivers, we have a lot of respect for each other, we even play sports together, you travel together and of course you have moments where you get together and crash or whatever when you are not happy. 

"In my whole career, I've never experienced what I have experienced in the stewards room in Qatar, and for me, that was really unacceptable. 

"It is nothing to do with him being the director of the GPDA, I just never expected someone to really try and actively get someone a penalty that badly and lying about what I was doing, but it clearly had an influence on them. 

"It was just not nice and actually very shocking what was going on."

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