Ha꧟milton 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 fiel🃏d.

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

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

"I think we are a great team. George and I still have a great 🍨relationship. We will discuss things and work away," Hamilton said.

"I'm happy to take responsibility as the older guy. I d🥃on't think George had anywhere to go at that point.

"I was trying to get ahead of both of them and just an unfortunate situation. I had the worst tyre o💯f everyoneඣ around me, so I needed to try and get ahead. Big risk, big penalty."

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

"So this is def🌄initely 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 apologie🥂s to all of the team."