George Russell slapped with F1 penalty at Austin GP after cheeky Charles Leclerc message.

As soon as Charles Leclerc felt George Russell, a Mercedes racer, had gotten in his way during the Sprint race’s qualifying, he immediately reported his friend and rival.

Charles Leclerc reported George Russell over the radio in a striking manner, earning him a three-place grid penalty for the United States Grand Prix Sprint.

The incident happened earlier on Saturday during the Sprint Shootout. Russell was driving his Mercedes much more slowly than Leclerc when his Ferrari rival overtook him on the track while Leclerc was in the middle of a flying lap.

Instead of moving off the racing line, Leclerc had to swerve to his left to avoid making contact. But he lost time as he did so and the stewards tend to take a dim view of such incidents.

Indeed, Leclerc knew immediately that Russell was going to be in hot water. “And penalty for Mr Russell, thank you,” he declared over the radio with no small amount of sarcasm, making it clear to race control that he was not willing to let the incident slide.

And the stewards concurred that a penalty was necessary. After hearing from both drivers, they determined that Russell had unnecessarily impeded Leclerc and that it was a serious enough offence to warrant a three-place grid drop.

“Car 63 [Russell] entered the last two corners preparing for his flying lap at the end of SQ1 with Car 16 [Leclerc] closing in quickly,” read the official decision document. “Whilst the team did inform the driver about the closing car a few seconds in advance, there was no further information directly before Car 63 entered Turn 19 with Car 16 right behind.

“Car 63 did not move from the racing line in or after Turn 19 and therefore unnecessarily impeded Car 16. The Stewards note that, irrespective of any information coming from the team, it is the driver’s responsibility to ensure that no other cars are unnecessarily impeded.”

As per the sporting regulations, any offences made in the Sprint Shootout can only be punished in the Sprint race which follows. As such, Russell will serve his grid drop in the short-form race and will still start Sunday’s Grand Prix in the same place as he qualified on Friday.

The fifth fastest was that. Lewis Hamilton, Leclerc’s teammate, finished third fastest while the Ferrari was on pole. Max Verstappen had to make do with sixth place on the grid, falling behind Lando Norris in second and Carlos Sainz in fourth.

The three-time winner set a lap time that moved him into provisional pole position, but it was quickly taken away from him. Race control determined that he had exceeded track limits because he had crossed the white line at the penultimate corner, so that lap was duly removed from the time sheets.