"Did you brake test him there?": Max Verstappen jokes with George Russell as Mercedes driver reveals he bumped into Fernando Alonso in Monaco

Max Verstappen jokingly nudged George Russell about his 'coffee shop' encounter with Fernando Alonso after their divisive incident at the Australian Grand Prix.

Russell and Alonso were involved in an incident on the penultimate lap of the Australian GP a couple of weeks ago where the Mercedes driver found himself in the wall whilst chasing the two-time world champion.

The Aston Martin driver was given a 20-second penalty, which translated to a two-place grid drop and sent him back from P6 to P8 after he was found guilty of 'dangerously' slowing down before the straight in Turn 6 at the Albert Park Circuit.

In the pre-race press conference in Japan, George Russell revealed that he bumped into Fernando Alonso in a coffee shop in Monaco, saying:

"Yeah, I mean, we actually saw each other back home, just coincidentally bumped into each other in a coffee shop…"

Max Verstappen jokingly asked him while referencing the incident:

"Did you brake test him there or not?"

The British driver replied:

"No, as I said before, it's nothing personal. When the helmet's on, we're all fighters and competing. And when the helmet's off, you have respect for one another. So, of course, a lot of emotions in the moment. But, you know, we both moved forward from this."

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George Russell chimes in on the 'importance' of Fernando Alonso's penalty in Melbourne

George Russell stated that he agreed that Fernando Alonso's move wasn't 'overtly dangerous' but found it important as 'it has a concertina effect if everybody's moving around.'

As quoted by the aforementioned source, the 26-year-old spoke about the penalty and said:

"If suddenly you brake test somebody and there's 10 cars behind, it probably has a greater effect by the 10th driver than it does for the first driver behind. So as I said, I don't think what Fernando did was extraordinarily dangerous, but it will open a can of worms if it wasn't penalized."

Alonso was expectedly aggrieved with the post-race penalty as he called the move 'hard but fair racing'. He also pointed out that it was a part of the 'art of defending' as no driver goes 100% on every lap of the race.

It will be interesting to see if the Aston Martin driver has any response to George Russell's comments regarding the 'importance' of the penalty and if he will make any certain adjustments in his defending heading into Suzuka this weekend. The Spaniard currently sits eighth in the drivers' standings — one place and two points behind his Mercedes counterpart, who has 18 points from three races.