Last Updated on June 16 2025, 12:58 pm
Max Verstappen was back on the F1 podium after missing out in Monaco and Barcelona. At the Spanish Grand Prix a dubious Red Bull team order unleashed all kinds chaos at the circuit de Catalunya as the world champion was instructed to allow George Russell past.
This was a mistake from Red Bull following a safety car restart where Russell and Verstappen had tangled going into turn 1. The Mercedes driver los control of his car momentarily forcing Max to take to the escape road and returning to the track still ahead of his rival.
As the incident was late in the race and with the field bunched up due to the safety car, the team were concerned the race stewards may view the incident as their driver leaving the track and having gained an advantage. In reality the stewards determined it was Russell who had been at fault and revelled they had no intention of penalising the Red Bull driver.
Barcelona spill over feared
Strangely Russell wasn’t penalised for causing a collision as he dived down the inside of turn one before making a mistake, yet the order from Red Bull caused Verstappen to temporarily lose control. He appeared to be allowing Russell by into turn five but then for no reason tapped the side of the Mercedes, something which earned him a ten second penalty – something Red Bull were desperate to avoid – and three points on his F1 super license.
This leaves the world champion perilously close to a one race ban given he now has 11 of the 12 points required for an automatic race ban. Following the next Grand Prix weekend in Austria, Verstappen will drops two points he received last year at the Red Bull Ring following his late race crash with Lando Norris which forced the British driver to retire his McLaren. This still leaves Max vulnerable to a race ban with the stewards handing out three pints for serious offences until the next points fall away from his license after this year’s Mexican Grand Prix in October.
Coming into the Canadian race weekend, a number of media pundits had warned that other drivers could take advantage of Verstappen’s plight by goading him or by using gamesmanship to force the stewards to penalise the Red Bull driver further towards a race ban.
Red Bull then confirmed they had raised the issue with race director, Rui Marques ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix in a bid to protect their star driver from any foul play instigated by his competitors as Max believed happened last year in Qatar. There George Russell appeared to create a scenario where he arrived on the tail of Verstappen at high speed as the Dutchman was preparing to start a push lap in qualifying.
Russell/Verstappen hostilities continue
Russell exploded in front of the media following the event, branding Verstappen as “dangerous” yet it was clear for all to see on the timing information, that Russell had two cars ahead of him prepping for a fast lap. Verstappen had slowed because ahead of him Fernando Alonso too was traveling slowly, something Mercedes would have known. The implication was Russell had contrived to create the situation where Verstappen was eventually penalised by the letter of the law from the stewards.
“I’ve been in that [stewards’] meeting room many times in my life, in my career, with people that I’ve raced and I’ve never seen someone trying to screw someone over that hard,” Verstappen revealed. The war of words between the drivers continued into the final race weekend of the year.
There’s clearly no love lost between Russell and Verstappen with the Mercedes driver joking before the weekend in Montreal he had a lot less to worry about than his rival on 11 points. Having claimed a spectacular pole from Verstappen, he was asked about any potential issues going into turn one on Sunday. ”I’ve got a few more points on my license to play with so, yeah, let’s see,” Russell chirped.
This clearly concerned Red Bull with team boss Christian Horner noting: “I think you could hear from George’s press comments [after qualifying]. You know, his objective was reasonably clear.” Despite racing hard together on track for most of the Grand Prix, things remained clean between the two rivals until a late safety car closed up the field.
Did George brake test Max?
Travelling particularly slowly in an effort to allow the marshalls to clean up the debris from Norris stricken McLaren, Russell appeared to fall a long way back from the safety car before bursting forward to put heat into his tyres and brakes. Havig done this several times, the Mercedes driver appeared to brake more heavily than before, forcing Verstappen to momentarily pass him on track which Russell immediately reported to the stewards.
Overtaking behind the safety car is not allowed in F1 and had Verstappen been adjudged guilty of this by the stewards they wold have been forced to issue him with at least one penalty point and of course a subsequent trade ban.
Clearly incensed by what they believed to be “gamesmanship” Red Bull protested the result of the race, accusing Russell of multiple safety car breaches of protocol. The race stewards deliberated the matter for a whopping five hours, before releasing the final race classification where Russell remained the winner and Verstappen declared innocent of any wrongdoing retaining his P2.
Horner warns F1 race director
Verstappen refused to engage with the post race debate on whether Russell had indeed brake tested him, preferring to concentrate o the fact his RB21 was lacking in race pace to have claimed victory in Montreal. After the race Christian Horner had this to say: “Look, I think that it is inevitable that there was going to be some potential gamesmanship. It’s something that we raised after the drivers’ briefing with the race director, just so that they were mindful of it as well, because it’s clear that that kind of stuff goes on.
“We just said to him [Rui Marques], ‘Look, can you keep an eye on it? Because there have been comments that have been raised in the media, so please keep an eye on it’,” revealed the Red Bull boss adding, “But Max, I thought he’s been squeaky clean all weekend – and drove a very good race today.”
Hamilton exposes groundhog problems in Canada
Lewis Hamilton finally took command of his Ferrari SF-25 car at the Canadian Grand Prix and out qualified his team mate for the third time this season. The seven times world champion has narrowed the gap slightly to Charles Leclerc in the qualifying statistics and now sits 3-7 to the Monegasque.
At one of his favourite circuits of the year where he has recorded a record seven wins and six pole positions, Lewis was bullish going into the Grand Prix with his Mercedes having show good race pace in the practice sessions on Friday and Saturday.
Running in fifth were he qualified for the first ten laps, Hamilton was in the mix for a famous victory and as the leaders began to pit, he moved into second place on lap fourteen before stopping for fresh rubber himself. Yet as Lewis was racing towards his first pit stop, he hit a large rodent on track which tore a hole in his floor….. READ MORE
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Seems Russell is steamed he can’t win by fair means … he worked really hard to goad MV this past weekend. Shameful really.
Who’s the bully, in truth? A transparent one, at that. Surely everyone e is aware of his dirty tactics and I’ve personally no doubt MV’s interpretation of that previous call to the stewards was correct.
There’s no way MV would wish to be a teammate of GR’s, surely.