Verstappen apologises as Ricciardo bemoans ‘amateur’ error

Max Verstappen has apologised for the collision that sent Daniel Ricciardo into an early retirement in Hungary - and led to the Australian criticising his Red Bull team mate's driving as 'amateur'.

After starting behind Verstappen, Ricciardo passed the Dutchman on the outside on the run down to Turn 2, only for his colleague to understeer wide into the Australian’s RB13, causing it terminal damage.

“I mean there’s not much else to describe or say,” commented a disconsolate Ricciardo after the incident, for which stewards gave Verstappen a 10-second time penalty for causing the collision. “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 team mate gets ahead of him. He had the whole race to repair the mistake. The pass wasn’t on – it wasn’t even a pass.”

Asked what he would say to Verstappen after the race, Ricciardo added: “The team will do their bit, I’ll do mine. For sure we’ll sort it out.

“Honestly, I don’t think it’s (about him) trying too hard. I don’t think there’s any excuse for it. He tried outside T1 - it didn’t work. He got the line taken away from him, he sees me goes past, thinks ‘I got to fix this’ and we crash.”

Verstappen apologised to his team mate immediately after the chequered flag, saying: "Of course it's never my intention to hit anyone, especially not my team mate – especially with the relationship I have with Daniel, it's always very good and we can always have a laugh.

"I think before we have shown we can race very well together. So this is not nice and I apologise to Daniel, and to the team.

"We could have scored good points here. I'll speak to Daniel in private and we'll sort it out."

Asked about his version of events, Verstappen added: "I think everything started in T1 – the start was actually quite good but I then got squeezed wide by [Valtteri] Bottas and put on the astroturf and lost quite a bit of speed.

"And then we [he and Ricciardo] were both fighting for position in Turn 2, so we braked quite deep into the corner but I had Bottas in front of me so I locked the front, and from there I was just a passenger."

It was the first time Ricciardo has failed to finish Hungary. He won the race in 2014 and has been on the podium the past two years.