The inside story of F1’s savage season of squabbling, back-stabbing and bullying with Max Verstappen and George Russell feud simply the tip of the iceberg, writes JONATHAN MCEVOY

It could not have been scripted any better. George Russell was running late. The rest of the grid were already in their private dining room on Yas Island, home of this weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, and about to start their annual drivers’ dinner.

Out of mischief, no doubt, a seat was kept free next to Max Verstappen.

How would Russell react? Take up the pew next to the Dutchman he had just called a ‘bully’ in response to being described by him as ‘two-faced’ in Qatar last Sunday?

No, he whipped the chair away and plonked himself next to his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton. And when the pictures of Thursday night’s gathering were taken, four of their fellow racers stood between the warring pair. Just in case.

Lando Norris, who took the title fight as far as Las Vegas last month, has felt the full force of Verstappen’s unbending driving style this season. He was a close-up witness, at high speed, especially in Austin and Mexico in recent weeks.

Now, he could enjoy this spat vicariously, posting on social media: ‘The 2024 dinner and, yes, the two you’re thinking about were sitting as far away from each other as possible.’

The furore, which is genuine though yet to play out on track in the way previous rivalries did, such as Senna and Prost, and to a lesser extent Hamilton and Rosberg, is the perfect bookend to this season of controversy. It’s as if it were concocted for Netflix. It isn’t.

Verstappen views Netflix as a stunt as welcome as an engine blowout. Nor is faking something like this George’s style.

It is as genuine as the fiercest imbroglio of the season — the allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour made against Red Bull team principal Christian Horner by a female member of his staff — though the Drive to Survive cameras and booms were willing beneficiaries then as now.

Bahrain, the first race back in March, was an especially seething cauldron of gossip, intrigue and poison. Horner was cleared of wrongdoing by two internal investigations, but the repercussions persisted all year.

Design guru Adrian Newey quit, Red Bull lost form, Verstappen’s future was uncertain, and his father Jos was hopping mad with Horner for months.

Perhaps these convulsions had a role in breeding the visceral row that erupted between the two drivers here. For not only are most of the travelling circus dog-tired at the 24th round of the longest championship the sport has known, but Verstappen can only be worn out by having to hold Red Bull together in the face of a crisis that threatened to tear them apart.

He has dragged a car that was considerably inferior to Norris’s McLaren for most of the season over the line, with all the demands that has made of his body and mind. Nerves are liable to be frayed, tempers stretched.

As for Russell, he is keen to impose himself as a world championship challenger elect, a 26-year-old heir ready to take Hamilton’s crown at Mercedes when the seven-time champion moves to Ferrari next season.

Russell is the more corporate and careful, but neither he nor Verstappen — who announced on Friday that, aged 27, he is set to become a father with girlfriend Kelly Piquet — is a shrinking violet. Neither wants to yield an inch in psychological battle.

Which context brings us to the trigger point in Qatar. Russell was following Verstappen in qualifying a week ago. Each was preparing for his final flying lap, aiming for pole. Verstappen slowed down two corners before they pushed. Russell ran over the gravel and sounded off over the radio about the interruption to his progress.

It was no great drama to watch. But the stewards called both men in. Now it started to get ugly as Verstappen was demoted a place and Russell, who was second- fastest, replaced him on pole.

The decision came at 1am local time in Doha, three hours after qualifying finished.

Nothing more was said publicly by the pair that night or before the race. But, hidden away from general view, the two of them came together as the grid congregated 90 minutes before the race for their bus parade around the track on Sunday. According to witnesses — but denied by Red Bull — Verstappen sarcastically congratulated Russell for getting what he wanted from ‘your FIA f***-buddies’.

Verstappen stared Russell down. It was then the Mercedes man recalled Verstappen’s heat-of-the-moment pledge from the previous night. According to Russell, Verstappen told him he would: ‘Put me on my f***ing head in the wall.’

Russell said that at the drivers’ parade he saw in Verstappen’s eyes a flash which made him believe his rival was willing to deliver on his promise.

It did not happen. Verstappen was quickly away and determined to brake later than Russell come what may into the first corner. He passed the Mercedes and then led every lap to victory with Russell finishing fourth.

After the race, Russell did not disclose to the media what he alleged Verstappen had said to him, though he did confide it to a few team personnel. Verstappen, however, waded in. In an astonishing rant, he said he had lost all respect for Russell, a director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association of which all the grid are members.

‘He always acts very nice here in front of the cameras,’ said Verstappen. ‘But when you’re in with the stewards it’s a completely different person. I can’t stand that.

‘I’ve been in that meeting room many times with people I’ve raced. And I’ve never seen anyone trying to screw someone over that hard. I lost all respect. It was ridiculous how he tried to force a penalty, and I was heavily p****d.’

Russell was not due to speak to journalists again until the travelling cast reconvened in Abu Dhabi on Thursday. He let rip. Team principal Toto Wolff walked up as his media session was underway in the Mercedes motorhome.

It was a demonstration of support, though he did not castigate Verstappen (presumably because he has been courting him and rates his skills as a Mercedes driver one day). He instead ripped into the driver’s ‘weak’ boss Horner, whom he described as a ‘yapping little terrier’. Now, this did sound like an embellishment for Netflix. More of the Wolff-Horner spat to follow.

Back to Russell, who said: ‘To question somebody’s integrity while saying comments like that (putting him in the wall) the day before, I find very ironic.

‘I’m not going to sit here and accept it. People have been bullied by Max for years now. You can’t question his driving abilities, but he cannot deal with adversity. Whenever anything has gone against him, Jeddah ‘21, Brazil ‘21, he lashes out. Budapest this year — the very first race his car wasn’t dominant, crashing into Lewis, slamming his team.’

Verstappen, who had doubled down on his attack of last Sunday a few minutes before, later spoke in his native tongue to Dutch journalists. He said: ‘George is a back-stabber, bringing up all this stuff. He’s just a loser.’

Some Dutch journalists thought Russell had been close to tears as he spoke. I didn’t think that at all. He was measured, and there was no need for Max to hand out a Kleenex. It was then off to that awkward dinner, each keeping himself beyond fork-stabbing range.

And then we return to the Wolff-Horner bickering. They can’t stand each other. They are very different men: one an Austrian with a high estimation of rectitude; the other a more mischievous Brit.

But I view their exchanges as part of pantomime season, but well worth hearing for amusement. Responding to the terrier jibe, Horner said in an FIA press conference between the two practice sessions on Friday: ‘They’re great dogs and I’ve had four of them. I’ve had a couple of West Highland Terriers called Bernie and Flavio (after Ecclestone and Briatore, the former Renault boss).

‘The things about terriers is they’re tremendously loyal. I mean Bernie was aggressive as a dog, he’d go for anybody. Flavio was a bit more chilled. He probably ate a bit too much as well. Terriers are not afraid of having a go with bigger dogs. I’d rather be a terrier than a wolf…’

On more substantive points, Horner stood by Verstappen’s version of events, calling him a straight shooter. ‘I believe 100 per cent what he said to be accurate,’ he insisted.

Verstappen denies using the exact words Russell quoted about driving him off the road.

The chances of a resolution? There’s a chance that sitting next to each other and breaking bread on Thursday night might have healed wounds there and then, but it feels too raw for that to have worked.

Horner on Friday night urged them to speak man to man to patch up their differences.

There is a bit of history to their sparring to overcome, dating back to Azerbaijan in the sprint last year, when they crashed.

Verstappen called Russell a ‘d***head’ and ‘Princess George’. Since then they have played padel together — the sport of choice for F1’s Monaco set — and there were no public signs of overt enmity until last weekend.

Some of the sport’s top brass hoped the spat would stay behind closed doors. Sorry, folks, but Formula One has thrived on the basis that practically any news is good news. Again, it has revealed its uncanny knack of feeding the endless soap opera.