George Russell: Michael Masi would ‘fear for his life’ if Max Verstappen lost

George Russell claims former F1 race director Michael Masi would have been “fearing for life” had Max Verstappen lost the 2021 world title.

Masi was removed from his position as race director for his handling of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and controversial championship showdown between Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton.

Hamilton dominated the race and appeared on course to land a record eighth world title until Masi’s incorrect application of the Safety Car rules enabled Verstappen to overtake the Mercedes driver on the last lap and win both the race and title.

After accusing Verstappen of bullying behaviour amid an escalating row between the pair at the scene of that infamous title decider three years later, Russell claims the Dutchman would have handled the defeat very differently to Hamilton.

"I think he's been enabled [to bully] because nobody has stood up to him,” Russell told media including Crash.net.

“Lewis stood up to him in 2021 and Lewis lost that championship unfairly. Could you imagine the roles being reversed? Max losing that championship in the manner of how Lewis lost that championship? I mean, [Michael] Masi would be fearing for his life.

“And the way Lewis dealt with that championship fight, he was hard, he was aggressive, he was always respectful, and he never went beyond the line.”

Verstappen 'cannot deal with adversity'

Russell’s comments came after he revealed Verstappen had threatened to “put me on my f*****g head in the wall”, having hit out at the Mercedes driver for the role he played in his post-qualifying penalty in Qatar.

The Briton also sensationally claimed that “25%” of Verstappen’s crew wanted to leave Red Bull and sent their CVs to rivals after the Dutchman criticised his team amid their competitive struggles earlier this season, adding the world champion cannot “deal with adversity”.

“I walked into that stewards’ room with no problem with Max. I walked out of that stewards’ room with no problem with Max,” Russell said.

“Then shit hit the fan with the words he said to me. But again, I went back and I told my team and we laughed about it. And then I woke up the next day and I was expecting to have a laugh about it. 

“I saw the fire in his eyes. So I don't know why this topic has got him so angry. He cannot deal with adversity. He's had the most dominant car in racing history for two and a half years.

“I'm not questioning his driving abilities one single bit. But the second he does not have the fastest car… Let’s take Budapest as an example, he crashes into Lewis, he slams his whole team and he loses the plot.

“You know, straight away after that race, 25% of his engineering team were sending their CVs to Mercedes, to McLaren, to Aston Martin. Because they said they can't deal with a guy like that. And since Austria, he's won the same number of races as six other drivers.

“So when you say, is Max beatable? Of course he's beatable. You know, when he's in the most dominant car, he is not beatable. The same way as Lewis and I, when we had the most dominant car, in Silverstone, in Las Vegas, we were not beatable either.”