Max Verstappen has explained what he is going to do to avoid a penalty in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, after being handed a grid drop for driving unnecessarily slowly in Qatar.
The Dutchman was handed a one-place grid penalty by the stewards after it was found that he impeded Russell on his preparation lap by driving too slowly, before their final runs in Q3.
Verstappen had initially set the fastest time but was demoted to second for the race, while Russell missed out on pole by 0.063s which he attributed to having to go off track to avoid the Red Bull and damaging his floor.
When he was asked how he would avoid getting a penalty in the Abu Dhabi GP weekend for a similar infraction, Verstappen jokingly responded and then took aim at Russell’s tactics in the stewards room when speaking in the Drivers’ Press Conference.
Max Verstappen jokes he will go ‘flat out’ on qualifying cool down laps in Abu Dhabi
Russell aggressively argued his case in Qatar to avoid having to start on the dirty side of the grid, knowing that any penalty for Verstappen would have him demoted to an even-numbered grid slot.
Verstappen was spotted having an angry exchange with Russell before the Qatar GP, while also voicing his distaste at how the Mercedes driver handled the situation in the stewards’ room.
Now he has seemingly doubled down on his comments and jokingly outlined how he plans to avoid a penalty for the same infraction in Abu Dhabi.
“Yeah, I’m going to go flat out on my cool lap, and I’m going to act like I’m going to crash with everyone!”
Verstappen maintains what Russell did was “dangerous” during Qatar qualifying: “It was unbelievable and we’re all on a slow lap. It’s not even like someone was on their fast lap. When I got called to the stewards, it was a big surprise to me, because I didn’t really impede anyone.”
Max Verstappen accuses George Russell of lying to the stewards
The Dutchman did not hold back when discussing the situation from Qatar and even went as far to accuse Russell of lying to the stewards.
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“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,” said Verstappen.
“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.”
While Verstappen had wrapped up his fourth title of the year, Russell heads into the Abu Dhabi looking to improve from sixth in the Drivers’ Championship.
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