George Russell doesn’t regret intentional corner cut that led to harsh Monaco GP penalty

George Russell doesn’t regret intentionally cutting a corner to overtake Alex Albon in the F1 Monaco Grand Prix.

Russell was stuck behind Albon for a number of laps as the Thai driver backed off to help Williams teammate Carlos Sainz.

With overtaking near-impossible around the streets of Monaco, Russell took matters into his own hands.

Russell cut the Nouvelle Chicane intentionally to get past Albon.

Crucially, it gave Russell clean air, and he built a pit-stop gap over Albon.

However, Russell was hit with a hefty drive-through penalty - when the stewards usually give 10 seconds.

Speaking to Sky Sports after the race, Russell explained why he thought “screw it” when stuck behind Albon.

“That’s Monaco. That’s how the game goes,” Russell said. “We had planned it with Kimi and myself this morning. We didn’t expect Williams to do the same and Visa Cash App to do the same, and ultimately that’s the only way to score some decent points in Monaco.

“We were damned if we did, damned if we didn’t. At one point I was like screw it, I really don’t care because I was out of the points. I was going to finish nowhere and I just wanted to just enjoy driving in Monaco. We lost everything yesterday because of the failure. I didn’t get that chance in qualifying.

“I got 25 laps driving full gas in Monaco and the ironic thing is that even with the drive-through I finished higher than I would have done without the drive-through. I would have been stuck behind Alex and then I would have pitted behind Tsunoda, Hulkenberg. A bit of a flawed system.”

The FIA’s verdict

The FIA outlined that the penalty was more severe than usual due to Russell’s deliberate overtake.

Russell would finish the race in 11th, one place outside the points.

“Car 63 left the track at Turn 10 and overtook Car 23. He did not give that position back and maintained his track position,” the stewards’ verdict read.

“It was clear from the radio message where he said that he would ‘take the penalty’ that the overtake was done deliberately as he felt that he was being held up by Car 23 driving erratically.

“Anticipating that situations such as this might happen at this Monaco Grand Prix, all the teams were informed before the race by the race director (at the stewards’ request) that the stewards would look carefully at a deliberate leaving of the track at Turn 10 to overtake a car or a train of slow cars.

“That communication also made it clear that the guideline penalty of 10 seconds may be insufficient for this deliberate infringement and that the penalty applied may be a greater penalty than 10 seconds.

“We therefore considered that Car 63’s deliberate infringement warranted a drive-through penalty, and so we imposed.”