Max Verstappen openly apologized to Red Bull team-mate Daniel Ricciardo for taking him out on the main lap of the Hungarian Grand Prix.
“It is never my intention to hit anyone but especially not your team-mate, and especially the relationship I have with Daniel,” Verstappen said.
“We can always have a laugh so this is not nice.”
Verstappen crashed into Ricciardo as they battled for fourth position at Turn Two on the primary lap.
Ricciardo said, “The way Max handles it, more than the way I handle it, will dictate how it goes in the future.
“For sure I can go and call him names after the race but it’s more how he will respond – if he acts like the age he is, or if he acts like a man about it and and admits the error.
“If he starts bringing in some other kind of excuse, then we’ll have some problems.”
Ricciardo got the pursue on Verstappen the Dutchman was pushed wide at Turn One by Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas and was ahead outwardly as they moved toward the following corner.
“I was on the outside of Turn Two, Valtteri was on the inside so I thought if I braked on the outside I could brake later,” Ricciardo added. “I don’t really know what he was doing because Valtteri was on the inside.
“It’s frustrating. It’s not even an overtaking move. It’s an emotional response – sees me pass him, wants to make it back and messed it up.”
In any case, Verstappen bolted his brakes and slid into the Australian, breaking a radiator. Ricciardo spun into retirement on liquids from his own car a corner later.
Verstappen’s turn earned him a 10-second punishment, served at his pit stop, which cost him any shot of testing the Ferraris and Mercedes. He got back home in fifth place, only 13 seconds behind race champ Sebastian Vettel. Lewis Hamilton said: “It is not what you want to touch your team-mate but I didn’t do it on purpose.
You try to fight for position, but fair, but I locked up and it is difficult to control that when you are also tight on the first lap.
“It is not nice and good but I will speak to Daniel about that. I apologise to him and also to the team because we could have scored some good points there.
“We were both fighting for position in Turn Two. So we braked quite deep into the corner but I had a car in front of me so I locked the front and then I was just a passenger.
“I was trying to avoid Daniel, of course, but unfortunately it was not possible.”
