Verstappen heard Russell’s request for a tow: “It makes me laugh”

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Verstappen heard Russell’s request for a tow: “It makes me laugh”

Max Verstappen revealed he was aware of George Russell’s unlikely request to receive a tow from his rival on their final laps in qualifying.

The Mercedes driver made the surprise suggestion during Q3 in a radio message to race engineer Marcus Dudley. “Try and get me behind Verstappen on his in-lap,” said Russell, “he’ll probably give me a tow.”

Verstappen did not help Russell by giving him a slipstream on his way to claiming pole position for the championship-deciding race. However he admitted he was aware of Russell’s optimistic suggestion.

“I saw, before I went out for the final run, that he said so,” Verstappen told Viaplay. “It makes me laugh.”

Russell qualified fourth on the grid behind Verstappen and his two championship rivals.

In order to win the world championship, Verstappen needs to win Sunday’s race with Lando Norris outside the top three places. Russell said this prompted the suggestion he made, by proxy, to Red Bull.

“They need somebody in the mix,” he told Channel 4. “Realistically we didn’t quite have the pace today.

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“So it was sort of a subtle hint to the Red Bull pit wall to consider it. It didn’t work out, but [fourth] is a good place to get involved tomorrow.”

Verstappen thanked his team mate Yuki Tsunoda for arranging to give him a tow on his first run in Q3. However Verstappen managed to improve his lap time on his final attempt without Tsunoda’s assistance.

“It helped, for sure,” said Verstappen. “He had to sacrifice one of his runs, so I’m of course very happy and thankful that he did that. He’s always been a great team player so I’m very thankful for that.

“But then I also knew in the final run if I wanted to find a little bit more, I had to really dig deep in the corners and luckily we could find a little bit extra.”