A furious Daniel Ricciardo criticised teammate Max Verstappen claiming there was “no excuse” for the collision between the pair at Turn 2 on the opening lap of the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The Dutchman was given a 10-second time penalty by the stewards after sliding into the side of the Australian as they rounded the long left-hander, that came moments after both Red Bull drivers had used better starts to jump Lewis Hamilton at the first corner.
For Ricciardo, the damage to the sidepod and radiators meant he retired on the first lap of a Grand Prix for the first time in his Formula 1 career and was a massive blow for the Milton Keynes outfit around one of their strongest circuits.
“I mean, there’s not much else to describe or say, it was what it was,” the 28-year-old claimed.
“I had a good run out of Turn 1, there was obviously a bit going on. I saw Valtteri on the inside, so I could brake a bit later, go there and protect the place then I got hit. For sure it’s not on. That was amateur, to say the least. It’s frustrating.”
Though an aggressive approach was expected by the Red Bull drivers, with Ricciardo himself claiming he didn’t expect to “have many friends” when talking about his race strategy after qualifying, he also believes the incident was another sign of the inexperience and perhaps immaturity of the 19-year-old.
“I don’t think he likes it when a team-mate gets in front of him,” he said. “He’s got the whole race to try to repair the mistake but the pass was never on. It wasn’t even a pass.
“I honestly don’t even think he was trying too hard, there’s no excuse for it,” he added. “He tried the outside of Turn 1, it didn’t work, the line got taken away from him, so what looked like a good start was then a bad start, he saw me go past and thought ‘I have to fix this’ and then hit me.”
Offering his side of the incident, Verstappen claimed the contact was unavoidable, despite his teammate offering sufficient space up the inside.
“I tried to keep it to the inside but then I just got locking, locking, and then I, unfortunately, touched Daniel on the weakest point of the car, on the side,” he said. “Of course I was trying to avoid Daniel but unfortunately that was not possible.”
Though there was likely a frosty atmosphere when the two drivers met afterwards, F1’s youngest race winner was confident their partnership could survive the incident.
“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.”