Lewis Hamilton takes ‘full responsibility’ of the Qatar GP lap one crah, apologizes to George Russell and Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton suffered his first DNF and first finish outside the top-10 on Sunday.
Lewis Hamilton and George Russell (Via IMAGO)
In the Qatar GP, Lewis Hamilton started on third position on softs, with his British teammate, George Russell, ahead of him on medium tyres. Max Verstappen was on the pole position. Hamilton reacted amazingly to the lights out and started gaining pace into the primary turn.
Coming into Turn One, Hamilton had enough pace to overtake both the racers ahead of him with the outside line. But it all became a nightmare when Lewis sandwiched his teammate Russell between him and Max Verstappen. This caused both the racers to crash and further led to Hamilton being eliminated from the race and caused Russell to lose all his positions and reach 19th position in the race and to pit early in the race.
After the incident, Lewis Hamilton’s race engineer asked if he was okay, to which he responded, “Got taken out by my teammate, sorry guys,” blaming Russell for the crash and his being eliminated.
In an interview held by Lawrence Barretto and mentioned in his tweet, Lewis Hamilton takes ‘Full responsibility’ for the crash. He apologized to the team and said, “Massive apology to everyone back at the factory, it was just probably a racing incident.” He understood Russell’s situation and added, “I take full responsibility for it, I don’t think George had anywhere to go.”
In case you missed it: “What the hell, two races in a row,” George Russell vents on team radio over clash with Lewis Hamilton on Qatar GP lap one
How did George Russell respond to this incident?
George Russell, inevitably frustrated from the incident, said, “Come on guys, two times in a row.” He claimed that he was sandwiched between both cars due to Lewis Hamilton pushing him.
He later apologized and took the blame and said, “So sorry guys I wasn’t even looking behind I was just so focused on the race ahead, I’m f**king lost for words honestly, I couldn’t do anything I was sandwiched”
The Race Engineer and Toto Wolff held a neutral stance and asked George to put his head down and get back into the to potentially gain some points for Mercedes after the horrible incident tonight at the Qatar GP.
Explore more:
- WATCH: “I’m taken out by my own teammate,” Lewis Hamilton crashes out in an incident involving George Russell in Turn One at Qatar GP
- Max Verstappen moved by his third F1 World Championship win, calls it his ‘best title so far’
Justin P Joy
(4895 Articles Published)