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F1 pundit Scott Mitchell-Malm has claimed that he would give Mercedes driver George Russell the 'benefit of the doubt' for his crash in Melbourne but added that he needed to 'crash less'.
The young British driver found himself upside down at the Albert Park Circuit on Sunday (March 24) after crashing into the wall on Turn 6 while chasing Fernando Alonso for P6.
Russell could not control his W15 after the 'dirty air' from the AMR24 ahead disturbed the balance of the car. It was later revealed that Alonso had a part to play in the incident as he braked 100m before the Mercedes driver anticipated.
While appearing on The Race podcast, Mitchell-Malm stressed that it was unfair to blame George Russell completely for his crash. He said:
"The only thing I would say in all of this is...I kinda will give him the benefit of the doubt in this one because it is a unique situation. I had a couple of people ask me it always seems to be George who gets caught up in these slightly weird accidents."
The F1 journalist then went on to cite examples of George Russell's 'weird' accidents and the uniqueness of the Melbourne crash, adding:
"Shunting under the safety car in Imola, shunting with Bottas, putting it in the wall in Singapore, getting suckered in behind Alonso. I understand why this fits into a trend but I would just say because this was exceptional. I still think he does need to crash less but I just wouldn't use this."
Karun Chandhok defends George Russell in his crash on Sunday
Former F1 driver and Sky Sports pundit Karun Chandhok has stated that George Russell 'could cut himself some slack' due to the suddenness of Fernando Alonso's maneuver.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Chandhok said that the Mercedes driver wasn't expecting Alonso to back off drastically before the straight:
"You can always help yourself, but I think given how different it was on that lap, in contrast to the previous few laps, I think George could cut himself some slack because he would not have expected Fernando to have backed off so much earlier. I think he would have expected Fernando to back off a certain amount earlier, but not as much as that.
Fernando Alonso was given a 20-second post-race penalty which dropped him from P6 to P8 and with three penalty points on his FIA license. The two-time world champion professed his 'disappointment' with the decision of his social media platform, X, as he termed the move as 'hard but fair racing'.
