"The chicane is not a place you see many people overtake," Russell reflects on his battle with Leclerc

Having picked up floor damage during his fight with Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc, Mercedes racer George Russell was left to blame the Monegasque as "the chicane is not a place you see many people overtake."

Starting from fifth on the grid, George Russell lost a place to Charles Leclerc at the start. The Briton then looked to struggle to follow the Monegasque as he started to fall back.

However, the safety car brought out for Lewis Hamilton's crash enabled Russell to leapfrog Leclerc as the Monegasque had completed his tyre change a lap earlier.

The pair then battled it out on the track, and Leclerc completed a sensational, but aggressive manoeuvre at the chicane. However, Leclerc and Russell made contact during the battle, and the Mercedes man picked up car damage which led to him letting his team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli through.

Things got even more complicated when Antonelli pitted in the later stages of the race, and Ferrari brought Leclerc in to counter. The Monegasque rejoined the track ahead of the Italian, but the Mercedes driver got it wrong and tagged the side of Leclerc when he tried to send it up the inside into Turn 3.

The incident forced Leclerc to retire from the action while Antonelli suffered a puncture and was handed a 10-second time penalty before also receiving a five-second time penalty for speeding in the pit lane. As for Russell, despite his damage he climbed to fourth when those two tangled.

Commenting on his race in the Netherlands, Russell was left to rue the contact with Leclerc which resulted in him picking up a significant floor damage.

"Today was a tough race for us. After the contact with Charles (Leclerc), I picked up a lot of floor damage. The chicane is not a place you see many people overtake because the racing line naturally takes you towards the apex and the gravel.

"It was an optimistic move, and the contact effectively brought my race in terms of fighting for the podium to the finish. I was losing close to half-a-second a lap after that so to finish P4 was probably better than expected.

Reflecting on his weekend at Zandvoort, Russell noted: "With all that said, we didn’t have the strongest performance this weekend and a podium would have been unlikely. Isack (Hadjar) ran a great race, and he completely deserves this podium.

"P4 is not where we want to be, but we can be happy that we gained points on Ferrari in the Constructors’ Championship. Onwards to Monza," the Briton concluded.