There was no name calling or finger pointing between the two Red Bull drivers as they understood the gravity of their mistake by colliding during the Azerbaijan GP.
Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo had been fighting tooth and nail throughout Sunday’s race in Baku with the Dutchman getting ahead early on but being unable to pull away from his teammate.
That meant the two men were often side-by-side on the approach to Turn 1 with the Dutchman strongly rebuffing his Australian partner, sometimes more by luck than judgement.
Eventually, though it would all end in tears as Verstappen’s robust defence left Ricciardo nowhere to go but straight into the back of the other Red Bull taking both cars out of the race.
“It’s really disappointing for the team. We lost a lot of points today, unnecessarily,” the 20-year-old told Sky Sports later.
“I don’t think we need to speak about whose fault because at the end of the day we are racing for a team. We are representing a lot of people and when this happens it is just not good for both of us.”
Ricciardo added: “It is not a nice situation. I think we both feel pretty bad that it ended like that. For the team it is pretty crappy.”
Despite the near-misses on several occasions prior to their final coming together, there was also no hard feelings that limits had been crossed.
“Thankfully, we are allowed to race especially myself and Max, we love to race as we’ve showed,” Daniel said.
“That’s cool and we did get close a few times in the race, touching and that. Sometimes we were on the limit and it is unfortunate that it ended like it did.”
“It was hard racing but fair, we gave each other space,” Max continued. “We had this little brush with the wheels but I think in racing that can happen.
“What happened after that is not good.”
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Though Verstappen was sure there would be no lasting effects from the incident, his teammate was a little less enthusiastic about being together.
“We are not into each other right now, it’s more about saying sorry to the team, trying to apologise for the best way we can,” Ricciardo explained.
‘We don’t want to be in that situation.”
After the race, both drivers were reprimanded for the incident by the stewards with a feeling that both had contributed in some way to causing the collision.