'Russell refused to sit next to Verstappen at dinner'
Red Bull Contentpool
Rumors
Max Verstappen and George Russell have been involved in a feud since last weekend. During the annual Formula 1 dinner, the other drivers allegedly made every effort to get the two to sit next to each other, but Russell supposedly refused.
Lewis Hamilton hosted the annual dinner with Formula 1 drivers on Thursday. Photos showed Verstappen and Russell sitting far apart during the event. Lando Norris confirmed this via the caption of his post on Instagram.
'Russell refused to sit next to Verstappen'
However, BBC Sport states that there's more to what happened prior to the dinner. Russell was last to turn up, and both seats remaining were next to Verstappen. The Dutchman said, "Hi, George," and suggested he sit there. Russell said hello back, took a seat and moved away to sit next to team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
Verstappen and Russell had made statements about each other's behaviour to the media earlier in the day. The Briton claimed that the Red Bull driver had allegedly threatened to "put his fu**ing head into the wall". The Mercedes driver also said that if the result in Abu Dhabi 2021 had been the other way around, then race director Michael Masi would have had to fear for his life. Verstappen then responded to this in turn by saying that Russell was a liar and that the Briton also said things of the same nature at the Stewards' briefing in Qatar.
This article has been written with the assistance of Cas van de Kleut.