{"id":27735,"date":"2024-12-05T07:49:42","date_gmt":"2024-12-05T12:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=27735"},"modified":"2024-12-05T08:02:39","modified_gmt":"2024-12-05T13:02:39","slug":"george-russell-people-have-been-bullied-by-max-for-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/12\/05\/george-russell-people-have-been-bullied-by-max-for-years\/","title":{"rendered":"George Russell: &#8220;People have been bullied by Max for years&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the aftermath of the Qatar GP, tensions have spilled over between Max Verstappen and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/11\/30\/russell-im-ready-to-win-the-championship-in-the-right-car\/\" target=\"_self\">George Russell<\/a>. Speaking to the media in Abu Dhabi, Russell has responded strongly to Verstappen&#8217;s comments from last weekend.<\/p>\n<h2>George Russell calls out Max Verstappen as someone that &#8220;cannot deal with adversity&#8221;<\/h2>\n<p>One of the main talking points from the Qatar GP was the qualifying incident between Verstappen and Russell.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/10\/29\/verstappen-driver-line-up-is-not-red-bulls-biggest-problem\/\" target=\"_self\">Verstappen<\/a> was penalised with a 1-place grid drop for driving unnecessarily slowly in Q3 &#8211; after Russell almost drove into the back of him in the final moments of the session.<\/p>\n<p>The Dutchman accused Russell of being two-faced, reacting angrily to Russell&#8217;s efforts to get him punished by the stewards:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;I have a lot of respect for a lot of drivers.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;But after last night I completely lost that respect for him,\u201d Verstappen said last weekend.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cI just thought it was ridiculous how he tried to force a penalty on me. And I was heavily pissed at him for that.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"KdMhOgZWQIhjtLhaMevV7w\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2187209770\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'KdMhOgZWQIhjtLhaMevV7w',sig:'fD6A5M_Q-KDG3Z7eRNYlw9Y7jmmpdWB_B9-poe0CC2E=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2187209770',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cHe always does it very nicely here in front of the camera, but then when you\u2019re inside with him in person, it\u2019s just a different person<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cI can&#8217;t stand that and it&#8217;s actually better for him to fuck off. I don&#8217;t want to get involved in this.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Heading into this weekend, many assumed this feud would dissipate and cool down. This assumption could not have been further from the truth.<\/p>\n<h4>Russell responds fiercely to Verstappen&#8217;s comments<\/h4>\n<p>Speaking to the media in Abu Dhabi, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/11\/24\/russell-its-about-time-someone-gave-verstappen-a-proper-fight\/\" target=\"_self\">George Russell<\/a> made clear he won&#8217;t back down to Max Verstappen.<\/p>\n<p>The British driver claims the Dutchman has a track record of making bashful statements to other driver.<\/p>\n<p>Russell also revealed some of the exchanges he&#8217;s had with Verstappen behind the scenes:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;I find it all quite ironic,&#8221; <\/em>he told the media in Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Seeing as [on] Saturday night he said he was going to purposefully go out of his way to crash into me and \u2018put me on my f****** head in the wall\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;So to question somebody\u2019s integrity as a person, while saying comments like that the day before, I find is very ironic. And I\u2019m not going to sit here and accept it.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"g6yGohGHSSVmfNm-xlg6bA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2187627324\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'g6yGohGHSSVmfNm-xlg6bA',sig:'6fkv8jwOmNjbhZ4jZwH2CDmeBH05liHK9DMLDwTqozA=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2187627324',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;People have been bullied by Max for years now,&#8221; <\/em>Russell continued.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;You can\u2019t question his driving abilities, but he cannot deal with adversity.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Whenever anything has gone against him \u2013 Jeddah 2021, Brazil 2021 \u2013 he lashes out&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;For me, those comments on Saturday night and Sunday were totally disrespectful and unnecessary.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Because what happens on track, we fight hard, that\u2019s part of racing. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;What happens in the stewards room, you fight hard, but it\u2019s never personal. But he\u2019s taken it too far now.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<h4>An unusually harsh exchange in modern of F1<\/h4>\n<p>In an era of Formula 1 where most drivers are on good terms, this feud between Verstappen and Russell is an anomaly.<\/p>\n<p>Neither driver is afraid of standing their ground, both on and off track.<\/p>\n<p>Looking ahead to the upcoming 2025 season, when Mercedes and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/12\/02\/horner-franco-colapinto-no-longer-an-option-for-red-bull\/\" target=\"_self\">Red Bull<\/a> could be title contenders, this rivalry will be fascinating to observe.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/12\/01\/george-russell-i-would-have-won-the-title-in-a-mclaren-or-red-bull\/\" target=\"_self\">George Russell has already made punchy statements<\/a> about wanting to challenge Verstappen in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Within a matter of days, the relationship between these drivers has deteriorated from a previously respectful rivalry massively.<\/p>\n<p>Only time will tell how these comments impact their battles on track.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the aftermath of the Qatar GP, tensions have spilled over between Max Verstappen and George Russell. Speaking to the media in Abu Dhabi, Russell has responded strongly to Verstappen&#8217;s comments from last weekend. George Russell calls out Max Verstappen as someone that &#8220;cannot deal with adversity&#8221; One of the main talking points from the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":27737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2220,465,121,2411,720],"class_list":["post-27735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-2024-formula-1-season","tag-f1-news","tag-mercedes","tag-russell","tag-verstappen"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27735"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27743,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27735\/revisions\/27743"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}