{"id":443689,"date":"2025-09-22T16:48:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T16:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/443689\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T16:48:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T16:48:14","slug":"george-russell-takes-playful-dig-at-red-bull-over-key-f1-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/443689\/","title":{"rendered":"George Russell Takes Playful Dig At Red Bull Over Key F1 Battle"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Russell took a cheeky dig at Red Bull after Max Verstappen’s dominant victory<\/a> in Formula 1’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

Four-time world champion Verstappen took his second race win in a row having won by the largest margin of the season at the Italian Grand Prix, before leading from the front for a Grand Chelem at the Baku City Circuit by taking pole position, the fastest lap and winning by being in the lead for every lap.<\/p>\n

It proved that Red Bull’s Monza performance was no fluke and that the team’s more engineering-focused approach under new team principal Laurent Mekies.<\/p>\n

Russell pokes fun at Verstappen\"Carlos<\/p>\n

Getty Images \/ Red Bull Content Pool<\/p>\n

Russell finished second for Mercedes to put behind him a recent run of struggles for the German manufacturer, even if results of fourth and fifth in the Netherlands and Italy don’t tell the whole story.<\/p>\n

With Ferrari faltering in Baku, Russell and teammate Kimi Antonelli jumped Mercedes ahead of the Scuderia in the race for second in the constructors’ standings to now hold a lead of four points.<\/p>\n

Asked during the FIA’s post-race press conference how he saw the battle panning out over the final seven rounds, Russell instead took aim at Red Bull, a team which has seen 255 of its 272 points scored by Max Verstappen.<\/p>\n

“Well, I think right now with the current form, there\u2019s as much chance of Max finishing ahead of us as there is Ferrari, to be honest,” joked Russell.<\/p>\n

Verstappen interrupted to correct Russell by saying “Red Bull” but Russell continued: “Yeah, team Verstappen! <\/p>\n

Returning focus to Ferrari, Russell explained: “It just swings so quickly. Ferrari were looking amazingly strong on Friday here, and they\u2019ve always been great here. <\/p>\n

“Charles has been on pole four times here, and they could have easily been one-two on the grid. And with how difficult overtaking is, they probably would have finished one-two as well. But, obviously, they had a bad qualifying, and they came away with single-figure points, and we were the ones coming away with 30 points, so nobody knows.”<\/p>\n

Russell on the up after illness\"George<\/p>\n

Mercedes-Benz Media<\/p>\n

Russell was taking part in his first media duties of the weekend having been rested around on-track sessions to help recover from a respiratory infection<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Fortunately, it was Baku,” he conceded. “Even though it\u2019s one of the toughest circuits, mentally and physically it\u2019s maybe one of the easiest. <\/p>\n

“Friday and Saturday, I was really rough. Had it been Singapore, as an example, I think I probably would have called it a day on Friday, to be honest, and probably wouldn\u2019t have done the race. <\/p>\n

“So sort of fortunate timing. I haven\u2019t been ill for a couple of years, actually, so it just all sort of hit me at once, but I\u2019m on the up now.”<\/p>\n

The Latest F1 News<\/strong><\/p>\n

Christian Horner Officially Leaves Red Bull After 20 Years<\/a><\/p>\n

George Russell Admits To Impressive Azerbaijan Grand Prix Result Being A ‘Good Step Towards’ Season Goals<\/a><\/p>\n

Lando Norris Talks What Went Wrong In Disappointing Weekend For McLaren<\/a><\/p>\n

Carlos Sainz Comments After Rocketing Williams Back Onto The Podium<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell took a cheeky dig at Red Bull after Max Verstappen’s dominant victory in Formula 1’s Azerbaijan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,707,4200,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-443689","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-formula1","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115248975500836850","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}