Max Verstappen defended George Russell in the F1 Las Vegas GP clash, as the Brit notes of not seeing him in the blind spot.
Already on the radio, Red Bull’s Verstappen defended Mercedes’ Russell after their clash at Turn 12 in F1 Las Vegas GP. The Dutchman actually surprised the Brit with a move on the inside in the corner where the latter turned on him while taking the corner.
Russell didn’t see and was surprised by the move, while Verstappen agreed with the Brit that he would have been taken aback by the move. “That’s always a tricky one,” he said. “I mean, he didn’t do that on purpose. I think he just didn’t expect me to pass him into that corner.
“Because that’s how it felt like, I put it on the inside and he just turned in like there was no one there, right. So I guess he just didn’t see me and then damaged my front wing. But luckily, the structure was still in place. So that was, of course, very important,” summed up Verstappen.
Russell agreed with the Dutchman about not seeing him and accepted the five seconds time penalty. But the penalty dropped him to eighth behind Lewis Hamilton, having finished fourth on the road where he even expected a podium. “It was pretty straight forward until the incident with Max,” he said.
“Just totally didn’t see him in the blind spot. Wasn’t expecting the overtake. I wasn’t even really fighting him because we knew that Max wasn’t our race. We just had to keep the tyres alive. It was a comfortable podium just thrown away once again. So, this season is really disappointing. Very frustrating.
“The only piece of damage was the wheel cover, which if anything, probably would have helped the graining by having that extra bit of cooling. So, if it wasn’t for the safety car, we would have continued and would have gone onto the podium. I don’t really know what to say really. Just really frustrated.”
Here’s crash between Max Verstappen, George Russell: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2023-las-vegas-grand-prix-safety-car-out-again-after-verstappen-and-russell-collide-at-turn-12.1782979008719149458.html
Here’s Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc on their run-in
Here’s how F1 Las Vegas GP panned out
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