Max Verstappen has hit back at comments by George Russell defending Alex Albon after his poor qualifying at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The Thai driver could only manage 13th on the grid for the race in Budapest, indeed one place behind the Williams driver, but George instead laid the blame squarely at Red Bull, insisting Albon was “one of the best drivers he has raced” and that he was “being made to look like an idiot”.
Of course you can work out for yourself was Russell was implying and clearly Verstappen didn’t take it well as he went full defensive mode against the Briton.
“I think first of all George doesn’t know anything about the team so I think it’s better he just focuses on his car and his performance instead of speaking for someone else,” he told the media.
The little spat comes off the back of a miserable weekend for Red Bull so far, with Verstappen only qualifying seventh around the circuit where he claimed his first Formula 1 pole last year.
And Max admits he’s already looking forward to Silverstone and the rest of the season.
“It’s definitely not looking great,” he said of his chances on Sunday. “But I hope this is going to be our worst weekend. We’ll hopefully learn a lot from this and rectify a bit of it in the upcoming races.”
“We just don’t have good balance throughout the corner. Understeer, oversteer, lack of grip. Not having a lot of top speed as well so everything together just makes it slow.”
Verstappen also thinks it’s a fundamental issue with the RB16, adding: “I don’t think it’s the set-up because then I would be blaming my engineer which I think is not the case. So no, it’s not set-up related.”
