Distraught George Russell fights back tears and points finger after Lewis Hamilton crash

George Russell sounded "absolutely distraught" as he held back tears while reacting to his early exit from the Belgian Grand Prix. He crashed out of the Spa-Francorchamps race on the very first lap, sent into a spin by his former team-mate Lewis Hamilton before his Mercedes came to a rest, beached in the gravel.

He was quickly out of his car and on the back of a marshal's moped to be taken back to the paddock. And he was feeling his emotions as he promptly made his way to the media pen where he admitted he was struggling to find the words to describe his anguish.

"I've got nothing to say, no words at the moment," he said glumly. "I just got totally swallowed up down the straight, I lost three positions down the straight, down into turn five and then the incident was a racing incident. Maybe I could have gone a bit wider, maybe he could've braked a bit more. The incident shouldn't happened if I had the speed down the straight. Very, very disappointed."

He made it clear he blamed the problem slowing his Mercedes car down on the straights more than Hamilton, adding: "I appreciate everyone is working hard to solve the problem but I'm stood here lap five of the race. I felt like I was in a good position to fight for the lead into turn one and then suddenly no power, and it's all gone."

In commentary, David Croft noted that Russell "sounded quite tearful there," after listening to the Brit's reaction to the incident. And his Sky Sports colleague Martin Brundle agreed, replying: "Yeah he's upset. What's he saying is 'I should never have been in that position in the first place. Yeah whatever, me and Lewis tripped over each other'. Brundle later said he had been told in his ear that Russell was "absolutely distraught" and "on the verge of tears" while carrying out his media duties.

His emotion was understandable, given the potential significance of his scoreless weekend at Spa. Team-mate Kimi Antonelli started the race 25 points ahead in the championship and will double that advantage if he goes on to win the Grand Prix. He started on pole and was leading at the time of the incident.

Despite Russell saying he felt the collision was simply a racing incident, and Hamilton's radio protestations that he had been unable to do anything to prevent the contact, the stewards saw things differently. After investigating the incident and looking at the data, they decided that Hamilton was predominantly to blame and handed him a five-second time penalty.