The 2024 Formula 1 season ended with a spicy war of words between Max Verstappen and George Russell — and things were potentially only aggravated by a prank at the end-of-year driver dinner.

The awkward seating arrangement between Verstappen and Russell has been talked about in passing — but new Red Bull hire Liam Lawson has finally spilled all the juicy details.

Abu Dhabi driver dinner drama between Max Verstappen and George Russell

At the conclusion of each Formula 1 season, it has become something of a tradition for the full grid to gather together for a shared dinner to celebrate the end of the year, and 2024 was no different.

On Thursday night before the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend, 17 of the 20 drivers ending the year gathered around a table to share a meal together, with only Fernando Alonso, Lance Stroll, and Kevin Magnussen absent.

But what should have been a relaxing dinner turned tense as feuding George Russell was left with nowhere to sit but beside rival Max Verstappen, a bit of banter from the cast of F1 2024. The two were fresh off a contentious Qatar GP weekend that saw the two slinging insults at one another — and Russell was absolutely determined not to take the empty seat.

Instead, he picked up the empty chair and took it to the opposite side of the table.

While we’ve known a bit of the story, we finally have the full details from none other than Max Verstappen’s 2025 teammate, Liam Lawson.

At the end of the year, Liam Lawson joined the Pitstop podcast to chat about his most recent stint as a Formula 1 driver — and to spill the details about the Russell/Verstappen encounter at dinner.

“It’s crazy how many messages I’ve had about this,” Lawson laughed when the dinner was brought up.

“People are really curious about what it was like.”

And so were the hosts of the podcast, who encouraged Lawson to spill the beans about exactly what went down.

“This is f***ing funny,” Lawson says as he begins his tale.

“We rock up, and we’re at this big table. Me and Yuki got there together, and we weren’t the first people there — there were probably like six or seven people there.

“But as the table was filling up, there was basically [one] side of the table was pretty much full, and opposite me was Max, and then there was like, three chairs to the left at the end of the table that were left.

“And George hadn’t turned up at this point.”

There was nothing to do but play into the ongoing battle between the two drivers.

“We were like, this is perfect,” Lawson recalled. “Everybody that was coming, we were like, fill that side of the table! We’re gonna save that spot for George, right next to Max.

“Then George arrives, and we were all like, ‘Hey!’

“And Max was like, ‘Here [Lawson gestures beside himself] mate, we’ve saved a seat for you!’

“And George just picks up the chair and walks to the other end of the table and sits on the other side of the table with Lewis.

“We thought it would be funny. It wasn’t funny.”

Lawson paused for a moment and then said, “It was funny for us.”

“Did George say anything?” one of the hosts asked.

“Nothing.”

But that wasn’t all. Before finishing the story, Lawson shared another tidbit.

“We kind of expected them to put it on hold for the drivers’ dinner,” he said of the feud between Russell and Verstappen.

“At first [Russell] went around the table saying hi to everybody, but he just came back and picked up the chair.”

So, there you have it. An eyewitness explanation of the driver dinner that rocked the world.