Lewis Hamilton and George Russell to hold showdown talks after ‘really dangerous’ Spanish GP qualifying CRASH
LEWIS HAMILTON and George Russell are set to take part in an in-depth review after clashing during qualifying for the Spanish GP.
It is the first time the Mercedes team-mates have collided – with boss Toto Wolff admitting it has made the team “look silly”.
Wolff has ordered a review to avoid a repeat of the incident, which cost Hamilton a shot of starting Sunday’s race on the front row.
Hamilton radioed his team saying: “George just backed off. That’s really dangerous! I might have some damage on the car.”
Hamilton later added: “I started to pick up the pace. I came around Turn 13 and George looked like he was going into the pit lane.
“So I kept it going and all of a sudden he cut back across, which was obviously a bit confusing because I didn’t even know he was there. So it’s just a misunderstanding.”
The flashpoint happened on the way down to Turn One in Q2 with Russell driving into his team-mate, who was travelling at 180mph.
The contact broke off a piece of Hamilton’s front wing, compromising the performance of his car.
Russell also radioed his team, saying: “You didn’t tell me there was a car behind!”
Russell later added: “It was just a massive miscommunication, I was looking ahead trying to get the slipstream from Carlos [Sainz].
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“Next thing Lewis was there, so, we need to talk internally how that happened because two team-mates, that should never happen.
“It wasn’t either one’s fault, Lewis probably just didn’t know I was starting a lap too.”
Wolff played down the incident saying it was not a repeat of the famous clash here in 2016 between Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.
He added: “It’s all down to miscommunications because drivers in the same team don’t want to crash into each other on their final lap in qualifying.
“It was just an unfortunate situation. It looks silly. This is a team effort and some things in our communications we need to review after that incident to avoid it in the future.”
While Russell was eliminated from qualifying in the second session, Hamilton will start the Spanish GP in fourth place.
He qualified fifth but was promoted one spot due to Pierre Gasly’s six-place grid penalty for blocking Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen.
However, Hamilton was still half a second off the pace of pole-sitter Verstappen, who continued to blow away the rest of the field.
The Dutchman’s pace was so superior he was comfortable to abort his final flying lap, despite looking like he would better his lap time for provisional pole.
Wolff added: “Verstappen is just on a different level and it p***** me off to say that but it is the reality.
“It is a meritocracy and they have done a very good job and they are just far away and something we have in our hands to get under control.”
Ferrari’s Sainz will start in second place while McLaren’s Lando Norris qualified in third, his best start of the year.