Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen will have the prospect of team orders being used if Red Bull feel a battle is escalating beyond sensible limits, according to advisor Helmut Marko.
Having already made contact on several occasions earlier during the Azerbaijan GP, an attempted dummy divebomb by Ricciardo backfired as his teammate moved back across leaving him nowhere to go but into the back of his sister Red Bull.
With the Australian looking like the faster of the two for much of the race some had queried why nothing had been done to help him ahead of the Dutchman, who was clearly in no mood to yield, and that is the lesson that appears to have been learnt.
“We’ll let them drive free,” Marko insisted to Auto Bild. “However, in future, we will tell the race engineers that they will have to intervene when we see that it could escalate again.”
The incident was the latest in a number involving Verstappen this season, with the 20-year-old making contact with Lewis Hamilton in Bahrain and Sebastian Vettel in China before colliding with Ricciardo in Baku.
“Ultimately, he will emerge the other side of this, the most important thing is to learn from mistakes,” team boss Christian Horner told Motorsport.com.
Also Read:
- Wolff's latest comments seem to end Ricciardo's hopes of joining Mercedes
- Red Bull advisor Marko claims incidents are part of the Verstappen package
- Red Bull drivers "screwed up" but team orders won't be used, says Horner
“The start of this season has been tough for him, in many cases it’s looked like he’s over-eager.
“I’m extremely confident that he will learn from and recognise his mistakes.”
The entire Red Bull team is now only looking forward to this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix at a circuit and with upgrades that could allow them to challenge Ferrari and Mercedes for a second victory of 2018.
