George Russell unleashes X-rated rant as Mercedes star left livid in Spanish GP

George Russell was left angered by a McLaren star in an X-rated rant on team radio at the Spanish Grand Prix. Russell was on a hot lap when he encountered a slow-moving Oscar Piastri in the braking zone of turn 12.

The Mercedes driver was forced to slam on the brakes and lost control of his rear end. His front end refused to turn into the corner and he ran wide, skidding off into the gravel trap.

Clearly angered by the incident, Russell moaned over team radio: “Who the **** was that? In the McLaren.” His race engineer simply responded: “Piastri.”

Mercedes have suffered a difficult Friday with both Russell and Lewis Hamilton struggling for pace despite introducing new upgrades last weekend. Russell was only fast enough for P8 in FP2, just under half a second slower than pacesetter Max Verstappen.

Meanwhile, Hamilton was P11, two-tenths slower than his team-mate, although he did his best lap on the medium tyre. The duo didn’t fare much better in FP1 with Russell P10 while Hamilton was P12.

The Silver Arrows were a staggering 1.1 seconds slower than the Red Bull’s in the morning session. Russell took to team radio to complain about bouncing issues in FP1 as several drivers struggled.

He moaned: “Bit of bouncing on the entry of that last corner.” Verstappen also admitted he was suffering from a similar problem at the newly re-profiled final corner.

He commented: “Car is bouncing under braking into turn 10 and in the last corner.” Sergio Perez and Lando Norris also mentioned a similar type of problem at the last corner which is quicker than in previous years.

It comes after race organisers opted to scrap the final chicane to return to a fast and flowing double right-hander. On Thursday, Russell admitted he thought the team could challenge P2 in the standings after fitting new parts.

He explained: “I think when you look on Saturday performance, we’re certainly behind Aston Martin, Ferrari, sometimes the Alpine as well. Looking at Sunday we’re a little bit closer to Aston Martin. It’ll be a good test this weekend. I think we can jump ahead of Ferrari, close that gap to Fernando [Alonso] as he is definitely very fast, close the gap to Red Bull and get P2 in the constructors’.”