Hamilton was at fault for their 🍌collision into the first corner of the opening lap in Qatar.

The contact forced Hamilton 💝out of the race - his first DNF of the year 👍- and Russell dropped to the back of the field.

Russell ultimately recovered to finish fourth, suggesting it was a missed opportunity for Mercedes given his 🦹impressive race pace.

Speaking after the race to Sky Italia, Hamilton💝 explained why his relationship with Russell will be unaffected by the incident.

"I think we are a great team. George and I st♛ill have a great relationship. We will discuss things and work awayꩵ," Hamilton said.

ܫ"I'm happy to take responsibility as the older guy. I don't think George had anywhere t🌄o go at that point.

"I was trying to get ahead of both of them and just an unfortunate si🐲tuation. I had the worst tyre o♏f everyone around me, so I needed to try and get ahead. Big risk, big penalty."

"The relationship isn't broken. I don't have any problems with George, we have a great relationship, we work and we always talk about th๊ings.

"So this is definitely unfortunate and I'm sure he was frustrated in the moment like I was. But we will talk about it offline and we move forwards. As I said, just apologies to all of the 🧔team."