George Russell explains “hot-headed” Lewis Hamilton radio complaint in qualifying

George Russell has shed light on his radio complaint towards Lewis Hamilton during F1 qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix.

During Q3, Russell seemed frustrated with Hamilton after the first runs.

He said: “What the f*** was Lewis doing prepping that lap?”

His race engineer Marcus Dudley replied: “It’s fine. We’ll talk about it after. Head in the game.”

Russell explained afterwards that he was initially annoyed that Hamilton was trying to get a tow off Esteban Ocon’s Alpine.

“Lewis was quite a long way ahead of me but we both had our eyes on the same driver for the slipstream for opening the lap,” he told select media including Crash.net.

“So I was focusing on my mirrors not to impede Ocon, and next thing I looked up and Lewis was right in front of my trying to take the tow from Ocon, in the moment when you’re trying to get everything you’re a bit hot headed but nothing gained nothing lost.”

It was a great qualifying for Mercedes as they secured third with Hamilton and fourth with Russell on the grid.

Reflecting on qualifying, Russell wasn’t surprised to be in the fight for pole.

“Absolutely. I think we all believed it,” Russell said. “The car has been feeling great. Historically, we’ve always gone pretty well here. I think the gap to Lando and Max was a little bit bigger than we expected.

“I don’t think Lewis and I got the lap perfectly together. They were good laps. On a track like this, just getting the tyres in the window, you just find those extra tenths and that’s what Lando managed to do today and we didn’t. P3 and P4 is a really great place to fight tomorrow.”

Mercedes have a key advantage in the fight at the front with two cars in the fight.

Russell feels Mercedes will be in a position to challenge for the win on Sunday.

“I think on a circuit like this, the pace of the car will always win out,” he added. I think strategically there’s such high tyre degradation. You can do some things with the strategy but ultimately if you’ve got one tenth of pace in the car that will also win out over doing something a bit different.

“We will try something. I hope we’ve got the pace to fight Max and Lando. I do think we have the pace to fight for them for the victory.”