Max Verstappen 'playing the victim' in Russell spat as Brundle ...

Martin Brundle says Max Verstappen has learned to “play the victim” off track while being aggressive on it and it is working a treat.

The key talking point going into the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was the major escalation of tensions between four-time World Champion Max Verstappen and Mercedes’ George Russell, following an apparent heated exchange in the Qatar stewards’ room and subsequent drivers’ parade confrontation.

It all stems from a qualifying incident between the pair, where Russell felt he was impeded by a slow-moving Verstappen on their respective Q3 preparation laps. Verstappen was duly given a one-place grid drop, demoting him to P2 and putting Russell on pole, with Verstappen saying Russell had been “lying” to the stewards to try to trigger a penalty.

The verbal war only escalated from there, Verstappen calling Russell a “bully” and a “loser” with Russell even bringing up the controversial Abu Dhabi 2021 title-decider, but the claim which really stood out was Verstappen – as per Russell – threatening to “put me on my f**king head in the wall” in a deliberate crash warning, words Verstappen denies speaking.

But, in the opinion of ex-F1 driver turned Sky F1 pundit Brundle, Verstappen has got his strategy for on the track and off it nailed as “he’s got everybody on the run”.

Reflecting on the Verstappen vs Russell feud, Brundle said: “Our audience will decide who they take at face value, maybe they’ll take both at face value.

“So, how I see this is that Max has ramped up the aggression on the track and ramped up playing the victim off the track, and it’s working, because he’s got everybody on the run. He’s got everybody on edge, whether it’s media, whether it’s other teams, whether it’s particularly other drivers.

“And how he goes about his racing, we know he’s always been aggressive on the race track, and I think he’s seen, ‘Look, I can actually basically, pretty much say what I want and get away with what I want’. He knows the rule book. He knows how to control his car, he’s brilliant at controlling his car in wheel-to-wheel situations. And every time he does it, it plays out for him.”

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Ex-IndyCar and NASCAR star Danica Patrick is wary of fully trusting either driver’s version of events, but if there was a threat to deliberately cause a crash, that is crossing the line.

She said: “I think that there’s a difference between being aggressive, and a bully, right? A bully is somebody saying something. I think on track, he’s just aggressive and he’s always been like that. I don’t think you’re going to change that.

“The instincts of a driver are very, very difficult to really fundamentally change.

“Now, the one thing I would say, though, is that for George, in that situation, he’s not trying to almost crash in qualifying, like that just happened, and he was on-line, and I would imagine, because he’s trying to execute the best lap. He’s following that delta. He’s trying to get temperatures exactly in the right place. So that was an incident. I think that really, ultimately was Max’s fault for being on-line.

“Now, maybe the only thing the team could have done was communicate, perhaps, where everybody was on the track. But, you know, I think it’s still to be determined exactly what everyone said, because we hear so many things, but then we also hear maybe somebody didn’t say certain things. So the truth is somewhere out there.

“But I think that, you know, if there’s accusations being made in a bullying sense of you’re going to do something to somebody, it just is not unnecessary.”

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