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George Russell made his thoughts clear on Christian Horner’s appeal following the Mercedes driver’s victory at the Canadian Grand Prix, where Red Bull had accused him of “unsportsmanlike behaviour”
George Russell has branded Red Bull’s protest against his Canadian Grand Prix win as a “waste of everybody’s time”. The Mercedes driver went on to reveal that the hearing, where Red Bull’s complaints about his “unsportsmanlike behaviour” were rejected, led to Mercedes team members missing their flights home.
Russell claimed Mercedes’ first win of the season as the race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve ended under the safety car, after Lando Norris hit his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri’s car with four laps to go. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen finished just behind in second place.
Red Bull boss Christian Horner decided to challenge Russell’s victory by claiming the Brit had driven “erratically” behind the safety car by braking “unnecessarily” on the back straight between turns 12 and 13, which led Verstappen to momentarily overtake him under safety car conditions.
Red Bull claimed Russell had displayed “unsportsmanlike intent” by complaining over the team radio that Verstappen had overtaken him, suggesting that the Mercedes driver was trying to catch out the reigning world champion.
Russell was finally able to celebrate his fourth F1 victory six hours after taking the chequered flag in Canada, following the outcome of the appeal. And the 27-year-old seemed bemused with Red Bull’s actions when speaking to Sky Sports at the New York premiere of the F1 film on Monday.
He said: “Max [Verstappen] didn’t know there was a protest even going on. So I don’t know what was going on, what they were thinking. I’m glad nothing happened one way or another.
“It was just a bit of a waste of everybody’s time. Shov [Andrew Shovlin] and Ron [Meadows] who work with the team both missed their flights last night so it was just a bit of a faff for everybody. But it’s over now. Eyes forward.”
Shovlin is the engineering director of the Mercedes AMG Petronas team. Meanwhile, Meadows is currently the team’s sporting director and represents them in discussions with the FIA, also communicating with race control during race weekends.
Russell’s comments, meanwhile, came after Red Bull team principal Horner insisted on Tuesday that he had no regrets about taking the matter to the stewards.
He said: “No, absolutely not. It’s a team’s right to do so. We saw something that we didn’t think was quite right and you have the ability to put it in front of the stewards. That’s what we chose to do.”
His Mercedes counterpart, Toto Wolff, did not share that view, saying: “First of all, it took team Red Bull Racing two hours before they launched the protest, so that was in their doing.
“It’s so petty and so small. They come up with some weird clauses, what they call clauses. I guess the FIA needs to look at that because it’s so far-fetched it was rejected.
“You know, you race, you win and you lose on track. That was a fair victory for us, like so many they had in the past. And it’s just embarrassing.”
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