Ricciardo has his say on the crash with Verstappen from Baku 2018
F1 News
Crashes between teammates happen more than teams would like to admit, and Red Bull Racing have had its fair share of them. The 2010 Turkish Grand Prix collision between Sebastian Vettel and Mark Weber is an infamous one, but a more recent one that sticks in the memory is the coming together between Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen in Baku at the 2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Six years later, Ricciardo has his say on the incident.
After Ricciardo and Verstappen started the race in P4 and P5, respectively, lap 40 of 51 was when they made contact, fighting for those same positions. Verstappen sat in P4 after overtaking Ricciardo thanks to overcutting the Australian in the pits, and after battling for a few laps and almost coming together in the process, they finally came together. Verstappen made a late move across the track to defend from Ricciardo who could not slow down in time, causing Ricciardo to crash into the back of he Dutchman and end both of their races.
Ricciardo says they 'should have known' he and Verstappen would crash
Speaking to the Red Flags Podcast on the incident, Ricciardo started by saying, "We hit wheels a few times. we should have known it was starting to escalate, and eventually, it did. You never want teammates to clash. Maybe the fans do, but the team certainly doesn't."
One person who was certainly unhappy with the crash was team principal Christian Horner, and Ricciardo continues by talking about the aftermath of the collision between him and Verstappen: "If you're going to ask me did we get an absolute bollocking after this, yes. Did we get called to the principal's office? Yes, we did. The vocal decibel level in the office afterwards, let's just say Max and I would not have been the only ones who heard the bollocking that we got."
However, now six years later after the incident, Ricciardo still jokes about it with his former teammate and others in the team: "The first year we went there, all the circuit branding said, "Well done Baku." It was like they were congratulating themselves, so every time we go there after this incident, we congratulate ourselves and say, "Well done Baku!"