George Russell addresses 'Just let me f**king drive!' team radio outburst involving Mercedes boss Toto Wolff

Mercedes driver George Russell addressed his team radio message directed at Toto Wolff during the Austrian GP and said that everyone was very high in emotion. During the race in Austria, George was running in P3 and trailing Max Verstappen and Lando Norris by a considerable amount.

After the last sequence of pitstops where Max Verstappen had a compromised run, Lando Norris was right on the Dutch driver's tail and challenging him for the win. The intense and aggressive battle between Lando and Max ended with the two drivers clashing and suffering punctures.

When that happened, George Russell in P3 was in prime position to jump both of them and take the lead. Once the Mercedes driver did that, the team boss Toto Wolff was quick to jump on the team radio to motivate his driver.

What Toto did, however, was time the radio incorrectly, as George Russell was in the braking zone, and communication during the braking zone is not ideal. This led to George shouting on the radio 'Just let me f**king drive'.

Talking about this during the pre-race press conference, George Russell said that this was something that Toto Wolff cannot be faulted with, stating,

"No, of course not. We live and breathe this together and I think it goes to show the passion that he has. If he’s not feeling these emotions, then he doesn’t care. And he clearly cares."

He added,

“And he wants to win more than more than anyone, so I feel pretty fortunate to have a boss like Toto to feel that and experience it with him.”

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George Russell reveals there was a little more context to the team radio

The Mercedes driver was also questioned if these radio outbursts were something that happened often between him and the team principal, to which George said that there was a little more context to the team radio. He was first talking to his race engineer for some time before Toto stepped in, causing an agitated response from Russell. Talking about the incident, Russell said,

"No, no, no! Formula 1 are pretty good at clipping the best bits of the radio. There’s a lot of context before and my engineer was on the radio for a good 15 seconds before and with Toto on top there was so much going on."

He added,

“What a moment for us it was and it’s understandable. We’ve not been in that position for a long time [and] everyone gets excited.”

George Russell now has his second F1 win in the book. During the ground effect era, the driver has secured two pole positions and two wins, while teammate Lewis Hamilton is yet to score even a single win in this era.