{"id":332743,"date":"2025-12-07T12:29:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T12:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/332743\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T12:29:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T12:29:09","slug":"it-makes-me-laugh-%c2%b7-racefans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/332743\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;It makes me laugh&#8221; \u00b7 RaceFans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.racefans.net\/max-verstappen\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Max Verstappen<\/a> revealed he was aware of George Russell\u2019s unlikely request to receive a tow from his rival on their final laps in qualifying.<\/p>\n<p>The Mercedes driver made the surprise suggestion during Q3 in a radio message to race engineer Marcus Dudley. \u201cTry and get me behind Verstappen on his in-lap,\u201d said Russell, \u201che\u2019ll probably give me a tow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Verstappen did not help Russell by giving him a slipstream on his way to claiming pole position for the championship-deciding race. However he admitted he was aware of Russell\u2019s optimistic suggestion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI saw, before I went out for the final run, that he said so,\u201d Verstappen told Viaplay. \u201cIt makes me laugh.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Russell qualified fourth on the grid behind Verstappen and his two championship rivals.<\/p>\n<p>In order to win the world championship, Verstappen needs to win Sunday\u2019s race with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.racefans.net\/lando-norris\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lando Norris<\/a> outside the top three places. Russell said this prompted the suggestion he made, by proxy, to Red Bull.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey need somebody in the mix,\u201d he told Channel 4. \u201cRealistically we didn\u2019t quite have the pace today. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text-above-ad\">Advert | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.racefans.net\/contribute-racefans\/racefans-supporter\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo it was sort of a subtle hint to the Red Bull pit wall to consider it. It didn\u2019t work out, but [fourth] is a good place to get involved tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Verstappen thanked his team mate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.racefans.net\/yuki-tsunoda\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Yuki Tsunoda<\/a> for arranging to give him a tow on his first run in Q3. However Verstappen managed to improve his lap time on his final attempt without Tsunoda\u2019s assistance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt helped, for sure,\u201d said Verstappen. \u201cHe had to sacrifice one of his runs, so I\u2019m of course very happy and thankful that he did that. He\u2019s always been a great team player so I\u2019m very thankful for that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut then I also knew in the final run if I wanted to find a little bit more, I had to really dig deep in the corners and luckily we could find a little bit extra.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Miss nothing from RaceFans<\/p>\n<p>Get a daily email with all our latest stories &#8211; and nothing else. No marketing, no ads. Sign up here:<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-above-ad\">Advert | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.racefans.net\/contribute-racefans\/racefans-supporter\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free<\/a><\/p>\n<p>2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.racefans.net\/tag\/2025-abu-dhabi-grand-prix\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Browse all 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix articles<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen revealed he was aware of George Russell\u2019s unlikely request to receive a tow from his rival&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[139537,64,63,3875,825,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-332743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-2025-abu-dhabi-grand-prix","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-george-russell","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}