That is the claim of Sky F1 pundit Naomi Schiff, who has accused Russell of making his near miss with Verstappen in qualifying appear “a bigger offence than what it really was.”
Verstappen claimed pole position in Qatar last Saturday, but was hit with a rare one-place grid penalty and a single penalty point – taking the Red Bull driver halfway to a race ban – for “driving unnecessarily slowly on a cooldown lap.”
It resulted in a close call with Russell, who described the incident as “super dangerous” over team radio.
The decision to penalise Verstappen proved highly contentious as Verstappen and Russell, as well as Fernando Alonso who was directly ahead of the pair on track, were all on preparation laps at the time of the incident.
After winning the race on Sunday, Verstappen told media including PlanetF1.com that he has “lost all respect” for Russell, claiming he had “never seen someone trying to screw someone over that hard” in the stewards’ room.
Verstappen’s comments were echoed by Christian Horner, the Red Bull team principal, who described Russell’s lobbying for a Verstappen penalty as “hysterics” and likened it to a footballer diving to win a penalty kick.
It is thought that Russell’s eagerness to see Verstappen penalised was driven by his concerns about starting on the dirty side of the grid in Qatar, having been left alarmed that cars in even-numbered grid slots struggled to get off the line at the start of Saturday’s sprint race.
Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com after qualifying, before Verstappen’s penalty was applied, Russell said of the dirty side of the grid: “It’s quite a big difference here.
“I hope the guys tonight or the track can clean it a bit because it was pretty clear in the sprint that everyone on that right side made bad starts and that’s obviously a little bit unfair to have those circumstances.
Verstappen’s one-place grid drop resulted in Russell being promoted to pole position and the chance to start from the clean side of the grid.
With Mercedes electing to start him on used tyres, however, Russell’s advantage was lost when Verstappen passed him at the first corner, with the Red Bull driver going on to collect his ninth victory of the F1 2024 season.
It emerged that a furious Verstappen confronted Russell ahead of the pre-race drivers’ parade in Qatar, with Horner confirming that the pair has “a little bit of a moment.”
Verstappen and Russell previously came to blows at the Baku 2023 sprint race, where the World Champion was heard calling his rival as a “d**khead” after a row in parc ferme over a first-lap collision.
Appearing on the Sky F1 podcast, Schiff claimed that Russell went too far in his bid to get Verstappen penalised and expects the pair’s relationship to be over.
She said: “Drivers, the whole pit wall, the whole engineering team are always going to be looking to see what things, other than what’s just happening on track, drivers are doing in the heat of a battle.
“Further than that, they’ll be looking to see where is a team making a mistake whether that’s in the pit lane, in the pit box during the pit stop. Everyone’s always trying to find an error your opposition is committing.
“But the fact of the matter is what happened with Max and George, while there’s never been very much love lost between the two of them, I think this really was the last nail in the coffin.
“Let’s take it back to qualifying: George already knows that there’s two cars up ahead of him that are on slow laps as well, because he was also on a cooldown lap but he was preparing his tyres for the next lap, so he’s aware that there are two cars ahead of him slowing down.
“Max is also aware at one point that Stroll [sic] is behind him. He then lets him pass and knows that George is also coming, but is told that he’s on a slow lap.
“So nobody in this scenario feels that they’re going to compromise a driver behind them, because they’re all theoretically in the same situation.
“This is quite a flat track with great visibility, so you can see quite far down the road where the next car is, so it took us all a little bit by surprise that George was so caught out by where Max was, the speed he was going when he approached him, and George obviously immediately reported that as being dangerously slow.
“You could see it was an exaggerated loss of a car: went off a little bit, touched the gravel, and then he immediately said it over the radio and then this whole scenario plays itself out.
“Now the issue is, whilst you go into the stewards’ room as drivers and defend your case – and it’s a little bit like being in the principal’s office or in a courtroom, everyone’s got to plead their case – you’re always going to do what’s in favour of yourself. You’re never going to just hand it over to the other driver.
“But within reason, I think, is the issue here.
“I think what George has essentially done by making this out to be a bigger offence than what it really was, it opens up the door for other drivers to do essentially the same thing: drive fast up to a car that’s on a slow lap in front of them and make it seem like they’re driving slowly, to force them into an error.
“That’s what we don’t want to see.
“We obviously were not in the stewards’ room, we don’t know exactly what was said. We don’t know what George said, we don’t know what Max said and therefore it’s really difficult to know how far George went in terms of what between racing drivers is respectable or not.
“But it seems that whatever happened or whatever went down in there, Max said quite clearly he doesn’t want anything to do with George anymore.
“So it’s got to have been a little a step further than what we’ve seen in the past.”
Karun Chandhok, the former HRT and Lotus Racing driver, claimed Verstappen was left “annoyed” by Russell “overexaggerating” the severity of the incident.
Asked if Russell was merely winding up Verstappen ahead of a potential future title battle, he said: “No, I really don’t think that’s what’s going on here.
“I think what’s happened, and I’ve been up at the stewards’ room a fair share of my career, you go up there and you make your case. You make your case for something you’ve either done wrong or you had something done wrong to you.
“And I think, just listening to what Max was saying, and speaking to a couple of people who was around there, it sounds like he thought George was overexaggerating the point.
“And really, in reality, it was two drivers on slow laps and it didn’t really affect anything. It didn’t affect grid positions, It didn’t change anything.
“And Max said: ‘Look, I get it fine. I was on the racing line. Yeah, you were going quicker than me. Yeah, I could have gone off the line a bit more. But it wasn’t like I tried to fire you off into the grandstand.’
“I think he felt that the way that George was sort of making the case made it seem like Max was trying to fire him off to the top of one of the Doha skyscrapers and I think that’s what upset him.
“It just felt disproportionate the way that the argument was being made. I think that just annoyed him and he tipped.
“Throughout the season we’ve [asked]: Is Max under pressure? Is he feeling the pressure? I’ve always poo-pooed that, I’m not a subscriber to that.
“I think he has the moments of road rage and I think he has the moments where things upset him and anger him and I think this was one of them, definitely.
“Mexico, Turn 8 with Lando was a moment of road rage.
“But the concept of him feeling the pressure off one of those drivers in a championship battle? I just don’t think that’s the case.
“I think he has moments where the red mist comes down and he reacts irrationally.”
