George Russell makes Lewis Hamilton feelings crystal clear as he holds back angry tears

Distraught George Russell declared himself "numb to the disappointment" after the latest blow to his Formula 1 title hopes. His Belgian Grand Prix lasted barely 30 seconds before he was punted into the gravel by Lewis Hamilton, while team-mate Kimi Antonelli took his sixth win of the year to double the points gap between the two Mercedes drivers.

Russell wiped back tears of sorrow and anger after trudging back to the paddock, though his ire was aimed not at former team-mate Hamilton but at the power issue that continues to hamper his hopes. "When it happens so often, you just get used to it," he said.

"I made a great first corner and I was tucked up right behind [Max] Verstappen. But, for whatever reason, the battery decided not to recharge at turn one. I went around the first corner, the battery didn't charge and I got to the top of Eau Rouge with zero percent on the battery. It was dangerous, and I got swamped by three cars. I shouldn't have been in that position in the first place, that's why I'm most angry. With Lewis, honestly, I think was a racing incident."

The stewards disagreed, though, and Hamilton served a five-second penalty, deemed to have been "wholly to blame" for the collision. The seven-time champion finished fourth and avoided a sporting punishment for an unsafe release for knocking over a mechanic after a pit stop.

Ferrari were fined for showing the green light when the mechanics weren't quite done with their work. Hamilton was immediately reminded of Kimi Raikkonen breaking a Ferrari mechanic's leg in the 2018 Bahrain race in similar circumstances but, fortunately, no lasting damage was done this time.

He said: "The green light went, and so I went. You're looking over here [at the light] and not over there [at the mechanic]. That's more on the team, ultimately. But when it happened, I noticed him and I stopped and what went through my mind at that moment was when Kimi hit and broke the leg, and my heart really sank for a second. I'm really grateful he's okay."

Otherwise, Hamilton said he took "full responsibility" for an underwhelming result, pointing at his practice crash on Saturday as the moment his weekend fell apart. He added: "It meant I was maybe three tenths slower than I should have been in qualifying. And then I was further back, got into the incident, five-second penalty... it's a domino effect from a mistake I made. I think our pace today, without the damage, we could have been challenging for the win."

Charles Leclerc put up a fight in the other Ferrari but Antonelli was irresistible in the end. "It was a hard-fought race, not straightforward at all," the teenager said. "To get the win was very special, but you can never relax because we've seen how the situation can swing so quickly. It's great, but of course there's still a lot of work to do."