George Russell Pounced to Lewis Hamilton’s Rescue to Avoid Penalty While Being Strictly Investigated by the FIA

The Mercedes driver pairing has had its share of cold conflicts. For instance, at the Spanish GP Qualifying, George Russell almost shunted Lewis Hamilton. Even at the beginning of the season, they disagreed with each other a couple of times on topics related to car setup. But at the Belgian GP Qualifying on Friday, when Hamilton was being investigated by the FIA for a certain incident, Russell immediately came to his rescue.

In Q2 on Friday, both Mercedes drivers were out on a slow lap. On the Eau Rouge-Raidillon ascent, Hamilton suddenly weaved in front of Russell and went off the racetrack. And the stewards put him under investigation for the same. But in the end, they concluded that because he was told that Valtteri Bottas, behind, was on a quick lap, he had to make space. So, he was let off without a penalty and his British teammate had a good role to play in that.

In the minutes of the hearing, one section read: “Russell only drove to the side later. He also explained that he drove with the same settings as Hamilton and that he was fully aware of what Hamilton had in mind.” Russell said, as quoted by Motorsport-Total, Hamilton’s maneuver “was never unsafe” and “the Stewards agree [to this assessment]”.

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Russell helped the 7-time Champion dodge a bullet with this one. But for Russell, his 2023 struggles continued at Spa as his teammate yet again out-qualified him.

George Russell Claims Backfire as Lewis Hamilton Continues to Out-Qualify Him

In a lie detector test with Sky Sports, just over a month ago, George Russell confidently claimed that he was quicker than Lewis Hamilton. And he was trolled by the LH army for such a statement. If he’d made that statement in 2022, it would’ve been understandable. But this year, it’s not true and Hamilton proved it again in Belgium.

He out-qualified his 25-year-old teammate, coming in P4 compared to Russell’s P8. After the session, Russell said, as quoted by Express, “We’ve just been off the pace, to be honest. We struggled in that session. I don’t really know why. We know qualifying isn’t everything around here but we would have definitely liked to be higher up the order… The car didn’t feel too bad just slow overall.”

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For Russell, it’s not the end of the road at Spa. He gets another chance today to try and out-qualify Hamilton in the Sprint Qualifying and race.