Russell hits back at Verstappen: “He's got enough experience to know..."

Russell and Verstappen had minor contact on two separate occasions on Lap 1 of the sprint, ultimately giving the Red Bull driver damage.

According to Christian Horner, the damage to Verstappen’s sidepod cost him approximately 0.7s in lap time as he finished behind Sergio Perez and Charles Leclerc.

Verstappen was quick to voice his frustrations in parc ferme, exchanging words with Russell about what had happened before calling him a ****head.

Giving his side of the story, Russell was surprised Verstappen tried to defend the position so hard by positioning his car on the outside.

"I was down the inside and I think as a driver you know the risks when you're on the outside,” Russell said. 

“I'm here to fight, I'm here to win and I'm not going to hold back just because he's leading the championship.

"I was quite surprised he was still trying to hold it around the outside. It's a street circuit and he has a lot more to lose than I have. 

“None of the contact was intentional, I was doing my best to try and have a clean fight. I was quite surprised he was resisting the position, I was on the inside.”

Russell didn’t understand why Verstappen was “so angry” afterwards given that he was still able to finish inside the top three.

"I was surprised why he was so angry to be honest. He still finished the race in P3. 

“He's got enough experience to know that if you're trying to overtake a guy on the outside there's a risk the guy on the inside is going to run wide into you.

"I don't think anything would've been any different had the positions been reversed.”