Hamilton was at fault for their collision into the first corner of the openi꧃ng lap in Qatar.

The contact forced Hamilton out of the ra🐽ce - his first DNF of the year - and Russell dropped to the back of the fie⛄ld.

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

Speak🅰ing after the race to Sky Italia, Hamilton exp🐓lained why his relationship with Russell will be unaffected by the incident.

"I think we🍨 are a great team. Geor🦋ge 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 don't think George had anywhere to go at that poiꩲnt.

"I was trying to get ahead of both of them and jus🔯t an unfortunate situation. I had the worst tyre of 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 ab🍨out t𓆉hings.

"So this is definitely unfortunate and I'm sure he was frustrated in t🤡he moment like I was. But we will talk about it offline and we move forꩲwards. As I said, just apologies to all of the team."