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George Russell has joked that he thought Charles Leclerc was being a \u2018cheeky ****\u2019 and trying to overtake him for track position during the sprint shootout at the Circuit of the Americas.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately for Russell, Leclerc was instead attempting to navigate a flying lap and was impeded by the Mercedes driver, who was unaware that the Monegasque driver was approaching at speed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This ultimately cost Russell dearly, who was given a three-place grid penalty for the sprint race for his role in the infringement. The punishment was even predicted by Leclerc after taking avoiding action with the Ferrari driver dialling into the radio to say: \u201cAnd penalty for Mr. Russell, thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, actually I thought Charles was on his out-lap,\u201d Russell said when asked whether or not he\u2019d been told by his team-mate about the approaching Ferrari driver. “So I actually thought he was being a bit of a cheeky ***** trying to overtake me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Click here to join our WhatsApp community to be the first to receive breaking and exclusive F1 news.<\/strong><\/p>\n Don’t miss… <\/strong> Ted Kravitz savaged by Christian Horner as Sky Sports presenter made to step in[LATEST] <\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cSo if anything I was trying to defend from him. So it\u2019s just been a really scrappy day, but we\u2019re starting P5 tomorrow, the car is clearly quick and I think has got better pace over Ferrari, so the focus is on that now.\u201d<\/p>\n This wasn\u2019t the end of the frustration for Russell with his fortunes taking another turn for the worse during the sprint race later in the evening. Starting from outside of the top ten the 25-year-old had battled back into the points, only to throw away a position after picking up a five-second time penalty.<\/p>\n Russell was attempting to find a way past Oscar Piastri, who was struggling to keep his medium compound tyres in the right temperature window. In his frustration he overtook the rookie off the track and failed to give the position back, earning him a time penalty that eventually relegated him behind Pierre Gasly.<\/p>\n More F1… <\/strong>
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