Verstappen has ‘matured’ away from erratic moves in his early F1 career – Ricciardo

Max Verstappen has “matured” away from making the erratic moves he made in his early Formula 1 career, Daniel Ricciardo claims.

The Dutchman’s aggressive driving style was called out by Lewis Hamilton after the pair collided at the British Grand Prix almost two weeks ago, despite the Mercedes driver being considered most at fault by the stewards.

However, while Ricciardo acknowledges Verstappen somewhat earned the ‘Crashtappen’ tag that some continue to place on him today during his initial years in F1, that Max is different to the one which races today.

“They [Verstappen and Hamilton] have been racing hard all year so I put it down generally to a racing incident,” the McLaren driver said, commenting on their Silverstone clash.

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“The main thing was that Max got away safely. He was tested [in hospital] all evening but he is here racing this weekend.

“There is a great battle going on between Lewis and Max so for the health of the championship, it is obviously great he is here competing.

“Max was under a bit of pressure in his first couple of years in F1 with some of the moves, but I definitely think he has ironed a lot of that out and has matured as a driver,” Ricciardo noted.

“For sure, he will always race hard but I think we were teammates for three years and came together twice, that’s pretty low numbers.”

Ironically, one of those collisions between Daniel and Verstappen during their time together at Red Bull came in Hungary in 2017.

But while there has been a great debate about what happened at Silverstone, more broadly, a recent uptick in penalties for relatively minor incidents has led to concerns that drivers will be more conservative about going for overtakes.

“As racers, we know. Sometimes, it doesn’t need to be written on paper for us,” Ricciardo, who is considered one of F1’s boldest drivers wheel-to-wheel, said on where the limits are.

“We know through years of racing and the experience we have. Especially in these cars, there is a point where there are blind spots where the car is a quarter of the way on our inside.

“We are well aware the chance of a car being there is pretty high so we are always going to leave room for one car if there is a car there.

“Watching Max’s onboard [from Silverstone], there was room on the inside. Of course, they were racing hard but I would say hard but fair. Max was respecting Lewis or knew he was there and gave him a bit of room.

“You know what was what. I didn’t really see anything out of line with the incident itself.

“Obviously, the consequence was really the big talking point and it is a shame it happened at one of the quickest corners on the calendar but luckily Max was more or less okay and he is here to race this weekend.

“Deep down, all of us know racing etiquette and when to squeeze and when not to. We are pretty clear with that.”