George Russell of Mercedes and Max Verstappen of Red Bull Racing after qualifying ahead of the Formula 1 Grand Prix of Qatar- Source: Getty
Red Bull driver Max Verstappen did not mince his words while revealing the behavior of Mercedes driver George Russell in the stewards' room after the qualifying session at the 2024 Qatar Grand Prix. The four-time F1 world champion had momentarily found himself in pole position for the first time since the Austrian GP earlier in the year after he pipped Russell by a mere 0.055s.
The Dutch driver was penalized by the stewards for blocking the Brit while both drivers were on a slow lap before the final run in the Q3 session. While Verstappen managed to improve his time, Russell failed to do so and claimed that he followed the delta while the pole-sitter didn't.
In their decision, the stewards accepted that it was a "complicated" situation but decided to penalize Verstappen and gave him a one-place grid penalty which demoted him to P2 while Russell inherited the P1 slot.
