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Watch: George Russell Channels Inner Dirty Driver to Take out Charles Leclerc and Alex Albon During the Esports Race

Published 04/05/2020, 3:13 AM EDT

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Lando Norris now has some serious competition in the streaming world. In the buildup to this Sunday’s Virtual Grand Prix, 3 F1 drivers now have Twitch accounts. George Russell, Charles Leclerc and Nicholas Latifi will broadcast their gameplay come this Sunday.

To get a feel for the track and the game in general, the ‘rookies’ had a practice session and a couple of friendly races. Russell showed the world his gaming ‘skills’ in a series of hilarious events.

George Russell steals the show (and Albon’s chances at a normal race)

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After spending an entire season on the last row of the grid, Russell finally had the chance to show off his true race craft. The Briton’s mock race with fellow newcomers Albon and Leclerc was anything but incident-free. The entire event was a laugh riot and fans cannot wait for the actual race.

There’s regular dirty driving and then there’s George Russell dirty driving. Russell couldn’t care much for track limits and collisions in yesterday’s mock race. The Briton made the stream very enjoyable but at Leclerc and Albon’s expense.

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Russell was involved in an epic battle with Alex Albon on the last lap of the race. The Briton had the task of fending off a charging Red Bull, which in hindsight, he partially achieved. As Russell danced around the race track in a bid to keep Albon behind, it seemed like the Briton had it in the bag.

However, Russell didn’t pay attention to one tiny little detail called fuel management. By running in ‘high’ fuel mode for the entirety of the race, Russell had an empty tank in the final corners of the lap.

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Albon happily swooped past to take the lead but Russell wasn’t done yet. George engaged ‘dirty mode’ and cut across the grass in a move that would make every dirty driver proud.

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However, Russell wasn’t quite done yet. The Briton’s lack of overtaking in 2019 became apparent in the second mock race. Russell unsuccessfully attempted a dive bomb on Albon, which, sadly bombed. Poor Alex had to face Russell’s wrath but it was very enjoyable for fans.

If this is a sign of things to come, fans are in for a treat for Sunday’s Virtual race. The race begins at 1900 UTC and F1 will broadcast the race via its social media channel and twitch.

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Written by:

Abhishek Bharadwaj

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Abhishek Bharadwaj is an F1 author and content strategist at EssentiallySports. Having joined ES in January 2020, he has over 700 articles to his name. While he was first introduced to the world of F1 in 2006, he started religiously following the sport in 2012 and has had an undying passion for it ever since.
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