George Russell claims Max Verstappen said he would “put me on my f**king head in the wall” during their infamous stewards’ room meeting at the Qatar Grand Prix.

A summons of Russell and Verstappen in Qatar has escalated into something more serious as both drivers have since fumed at each other’s actions.

George Russell fires back in response to Max Verstappen

Having won in Qatar, Verstappen went on the offensive and said he lost all respect for Russell due to the way the Briton had acted in front of the stewards and tried to get Verstappen penalised.

Speaking a week later though and Russell claims Verstappen is not telling the whole story.

“I find it all quite ironic, considering Saturday night he said he’s going to purposely go out of his way to crash into me and, quote, ‘put me on my fucking head in the wall,’” Russell said, according to ESPN.

“To question somebody’s integrity as a person, while saying comments like that the day before, I find it very ironic, and I’m not going to sit here and accept it.

“People have been bullied by Max for years now, and you can’t question his driving abilities. But he cannot deal with adversity whenever anything has gone against him.

“Jeddah ’21, Brazil ’21, he lashes out. Budapest this year, very first race, the car wasn’t dominant, crashing into Lewis, slamming his team.

“As I said, for me, those comments on Saturday night and Sunday were totally disrespectful and unnecessary, because what happens on track, we fight hard. It’s part of racing.

“What happens in the steward’s room? You fight hard, but it’s never personal. But you know, he’s taking it too far now.”

While raising the issue in the official FIA press conference, Verstappen was even more damning to the Dutch media.

“You know what it is? He acts decent in front of the camera here, but when you talk to him personally, he is it is a different person,” Verstappen said. “I can’t stand that. In that case you can better f**k off.”

Sky Sports reporter Ted Kravitz revealed that the animosity continued into the next day with Verstappen confronting Russell shortly before the drivers’ parade.

“On the drivers’ parade holding room, Max then confronted George,” Kravitz said in his post-Qatar Notebook.

“Still seething – as we’ve said, he uses that anger as motivation for his one-place grid drop – and said something along the lines of: ‘You and your FIA mates, I hope you’re happy with what you’ve done’. Or ‘your FIA buddies’.

“I think the actual quote was rather ruder than that but I’m not going to say what it was but that seems to be the confrontation that Christian Horner referred to that it all got a bit tasty between them.”