Shown the bird during Friday’s second practice at the Canadian Grand Prix, George Russell has jokingly called for an investigation into the “rogue Australian fan” who misled him.
Doing the laps at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Friday afternoon, Russell drove through the pit lane and past the Red Bull gantry where the team’s reserve driver Daniel Ricciardo was watching the action.
The Australian showed his former rival one of his most typical greetings.
“There was a rogue Australian fan in the pit lane at some point,” Russell joked to F1TV.
“I don’t know what it was, he put his finger on me or something like that when I was waiting to go out.
“It was around the Red Bull area, they need to review the video and see if this should be investigated.”
Russell finished the day second fastest in his B-spec W14, just 0.027sec off the pace set by his own teammate Lewis Hamilton.
It was a good end to what had been a disjointed day with FP1 halted after only a few laps had been completed due to a CCTV issue on track.
“Obviously it’s been a bit of a strange day,” Russell said. “Obviously we have seen what happened in FP1 and then the extension of FP2. It was a reasonably productive session.
“Okay, we can read too much into the times. Obviously we did some low fuel qualifying preparation towards the end of the session when the track was faster.
“It’s bumpy, it’s shining bumpy.”
Daniel Ricciardo thinks George Russell is number one. Good sportsmanship.☺️pic.twitter.com/b9hcJvnAWk
— Jiří Košta (@jirikostaf1) June 17, 2023
Asked if the Canadian track would allow Mercedes to fine-tune its improved package more than they could in Spain, a race in which Hamilton and Russell claimed a two-car podium finish, the 25-year-old downplayed that.
“I think between Barcelona and here there are two totally different circuits – the super smooth high-speed circuit in Barcelona, here it’s incredibly bumpy,” he said.
“But I do think that the improvements we made to the car in Barcelona helped to overcome the limitations that we probably would have had with the previous specification of the car.
We have to figure out where we’re going to be. I think we are still in the tail, especially on qualifying pace compared to Ferrari and Aston Martin. Valtteri seemed fast, maybe an Alpine.
“But you know, we always know it comes to us on a Sunday, so that’s when it’s going to matter. It seems to be wet tomorrow, so let’s see what it brings.”
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