Jeremy Clarkson takes Max Verstappen’s side in latest George Russell disagreement
Jeremy Clarkson has previously spoken of his admiration for Max Verstappen
Celebrity F1 fan Jeremy Clarkson has joined Red Bull driver Max Verstappen in criticising the FIA’s cautious management of the rain-affected Belgian Grand Prix at Spa.
It comes after George Russell, the Mercedes driver and a director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, insisted that race director Rui Marques “made the right call” by taking a conservative approach.
Jeremy Clarkson sides with Max Verstappen over George Russell after Belgian GP delay
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
The start of the Belgian Grand Prix was delayed by more than an hour last Sunday due to heavy rain with spray causing visibility issues for the 20 drivers.
The FIA opted to throw a red flag midway through the Safety Car-led formation lap, carried out at the scheduled start time, leaving Verstappen frustrated with Race Control’s cautious approach.
“That’s a bit silly,” Verstappen told his Red Bull team over team radio. “We should just run a few laps. Jesus.”
He added: “Way too cautious. And now rain is coming, the heavy rain, and there’s going to be a three-hour delay.”
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Verstappen’s worst fears did not come to pass with the race eventually getting underway around 80 minutes later, the reigning four-time World Champion racing to a fourth-place finish.
With every driver trading intermediate tyres for slicks after just a handful of green-flag laps at Spa, Verstappen doubled down on his criticism of the FIA after the race.
The Red Bull star admitted that the drivers had called for more caution after the rain-affected British Grand Prix at Silverstone earlier this month, but felt the handling of Spa was at the other end of the safety spectrum.
Verstappen told media including PlanetF1.com: “That’s a bit disappointing.
“We spoke after Silverstone to be a little bit more cautious with the decisions, but this was the other extreme for me.
“And then the choice that we made with the setup of the car was then the wrong one, because they didn’t allow us to race in the wet.”
Asked when he believed the race should have began, he added: “Three o’clock [scheduled start time in Belgium]. Straight away. It was not even raining.
“And of course, between Turn 1 and 5 was quite a bit of water but if you do two laps behind the Safety Car, then it would have been a lot more clear and the rest of the track was ready to go.
“It’s a bit of a shame. I knew that there would be a bit more caution after Silverstone, but this also didn’t make sense.
“Then it’s better to say: ‘You know what? Let’s wait until it’s completely dry and then we just start on slicks.’
“Because this is not really wet weather racing for me.”
Clarkson shared his frustration with the delays while the cars circulated behind the Safety Car on a rapidly drying track shortly before the race finally got going.
In a post on social media, the television presenter wrote: “Dear God in heaven. What is the race director at Spa doing?”
Clarkson’s comment has been viewed more than two million times and ‘liked’ by 36,000 accounts at the time of writing.
More on Max Verstappen and George Russell from PlanetF1.com
The view held by Clarkson and Verstappen was strongly opposed by Russell, who has served as a director of F1 drivers’ union the GPDA since 2021.
Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com after finishing fifth at Spa, the Mercedes driver argued it would have been “stupid” to race as normal with visibility so poor.
The Spa circuit has been marred by a number of tragedies over recent years, with young racers Anthoine Hubert and Dilano van ‘t Hoff killed in accidents close to the fearsome Raidillon corner in 2019 and 2023 respectively.
Russell said: “As a racer, you always want to get going. You love driving in the rain.
“But the fact is when you’re doing over 200 miles an hour out of Eau Rouge, you literally can’t see anything.
“You may as well have a blindfold on. It isn’t racing, it’s just stupidity.
“So I think, considering it was clearly going to be dry from four o’clock onwards, I think they made the right call.”
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