F1 News: George Russell Scolded Over Lewis Hamilton Crash - "That’s How We Lost Gilles Villeneuve!"

George is still coming under fire after his incident with Lewis Hamilton during Q2 of the Spanish Grand Prix.

Peter Windsor has discussed the contact between Lewis Hamilton and George Russell during the second qualifying session of the Spanish Grand Prix, labelling the incident "absolutely the worst thing a racing driver can ever do" in regards to Russell's place in the moment.

Q2 saw both drivers ready themselves for a flying lap with Russell using a tow from Ferrari's Carlos Sainz to give him the best possible start. But with him slowly moving to the right of the straight to stay in the tow of the Scuderia machine, Lewis Hamilton, who was using George's tow to do the same thing, thought he was being let past.

As they both approached the right-hander Turn 1 and with the 7-time champion's front wing firmly ahead of Russell's back wheel, Russell moved swiftly to the left again to place himself in the racing line, hitting Hamilton's W14 in the process, damaging his wing and forcing him off the track temporarily. While George didn't make it through to Q3, Hamilton did and was able to get his front wing replaced without any other drama, qualifying P5 ahead of a P2 finish. 

“It was absolutely the worst thing a racing driver can ever do,” Windsor told 

his YouTube channel.

“To pull out on the straight, when somebody else is going much quicker than you and about to pass you and hit them…I mean that’s how we lost Gilles Villeneuve.

“Ok, Jochen Mass was dawdling and didn’t know which way he was going to go but, in principle, it’s the same thing. Very, very lucky that there wasn’t a massive shunt there.”

“I’m absolutely staggered that George didn’t get a much, much stiffer penalty.”

He continued:

“I just think somebody needs to be doing something about that. It’s inexcusable.

“Why wasn’t he penalised more? And I think that’s possibly to do with the fact he has got quite a senior position with the GPDA and he is very well thought of.

“I think that’s probably why George does get away with it because he’s got this senior position now and they think, ‘Well, you know, he wouldn’t do it intentionally’.

“And that’s not the point. Nobody does it intentionally. If you do, you shouldn’t be in a Formula 1 car in the first place.

“It was obviously a misunderstanding. But they [the stewards] seem to say ‘oh, well, because Mercedes and it was split between the two Mercedes drivers because it was a miscommunication. It was unfortunate, but we’ll try and make sure it doesn’t happen again, slap on the wrist, completely wrong.’

“It’s actually even worse that it was his team-mate because in reality, he should have been looking in the mirrors even more.”

Russell wasn't penalised at all for the incident, once more adding to the controversy around race stewards and their inconsistency on the F1 track.