An angry Daniel Ricciardo lashed out at his Red Bull Racing teammate Max Verstappen after they collided in the opening corners of Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
Ricciardo got ahead of Verstappen at the start of the race, but Dutchman misjudged his attempt to get back past him at Turn 3, locking his tyres up as he slid into the Australian. The impact caused damage to Ricciardo’s sidepod, forcing him to retire from the race two corners later.
Despite being punished with a 10-second time penalty after being judged to have been fault for the contact by the race stewards, Verstappen went on to finish fifth in the 70-lap race. Championship leader Sebastian Vettel won for the fourth time in 2017 to extend his lead at the top of the standings to 14 points over Lewis Hamilton, who finished fourth.
“That was amateur to say the least. It’s not like he was trying to pass, there was no room. I don’t think he likes when a teammate gets ahead of him," Ricciardo said of the incident with Verstappen.
“He had the whole race to repair the mistake. The pass wasn’t on – it wasn’t even a pass.”
RIC on *that* collision
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 30, 2017
"Probably immaturity..."#HungarianGP 🇭🇺 #F1 pic.twitter.com/Mhhb2ZfLoO
A remorseful Verstappen said he would look to make amends with the man he has shared the Red Bull garage with since May 2016 as quickly as possible.
“It is never my intention to hit anyone, but especially not your teammate, and especially with the relationship I have with Daniel - it’s always really good and we can always have a laugh,” he said.
“This is not nice and I apologise to Daniel for that and also to the team because we could have scored some good points here. I’ll speak with Daniel in private and we’ll sort it out.”
Christian Horner, the Red Bull team principal, was disappointed by the incident, after warning both drivers against avoiding contact pre-race, but was confident the drivers could still work together.
“It’s was a very frustrating race because we effectively lost Daniel and Max got a penalty in the same move,” he told the BBC.
“What you never want to see teammates touch. Max is aggressive, he is on the limit. He made a mistake today and it was costly for him, for Daniel and for the team.
“In the pre-race meeting we talked about the golden rule - 'give each other space on Turn 1 and Turn 2. Has everybody got that?' They gave us the nod and then that happened at Turn 2.
“Everybody makes mistakes. The important thing is how you respond to them. He has apologised and will go and see his teammate to apologise.”
