Qatar Grand Prix 2024: Max Verstappen says he ’lost all respect’ for George Russell after penalty in qualifying
The HinduFormula 1 champion Max Verstappen said Sunday he “lost all respect” for Mercedes driver George Russell after an incident between them in qualifying cost him pole position on the grid for the Qatar Grand Prix. Verstappen was 0.055 of a second faster than Russell in Saturday’s qualifying but a stewards’ inquiry gave him a one-place penalty for driving “unnecessarily slowly” in an incident with Russell, who moved up to first on the grid. “Honestly, very disappointing because I think we’re all here, we respect each other a lot and, of course, I’ve been in that meeting room many times in my life, in my career, with people that have raced and I’ve never seen someone trying to screw someone over that hard,” Verstappen said after Sunday’s race. The penalty had almost no impact on Sunday’s race as Verstappen overtook Russell into the first corner and went on to take his ninth win of a title-winning season.