Ricciardo fumes at 'amateur' Verstappen error

Daniel Ricciardo described Max Verstappen's error at the start of the Hungarian Grand Prix as "amateur" after being taken out of the race by his Red Bull teammate.

The two drivers were heading down to Turn 2 having passed Lewis Hamilton at Turn 1, with Ricciardo going into the second turn on the outside but ahead of his teammate. However, Verstappen locked up under braking and understeered into the side of the other Red Bull, resulting in terminal damage.

Ricciardo was clearly angry in the Red Bull garage and when he emerged to face the media he was scathing in his criticism of his teammate.

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"For sure it's not on," Ricciardo said. "It was amateur to say the least. It's not like he was trying to pass – there was no room to pass, Valtteri [Bottas] was in front and I was on the outside so there was no room.

"I don't think he likes it when a teammate gets in front. You've got the whole race to try and repair the mistake but the pass was never on. It wasn't even a pass, it was a very poor mistake.

"The team will do their bit and I'll do my bit. We'll sort it out. I don't think it's trying too hard. There isn't an excuse for it.

"He tried the outside at Turn 1 and all of a sudden what was a good start is a bad start. He sees me go past and thinks, 'I've got to fix this' and then we crash."

Verstappen was handed a 10-second time penalty for the collision, which he had to take at his pit stop during the race. With the Dutchman finishing 13.2 seconds behind race winner Sebastian Vettel and running clear in the lead at one stage while Vettel struggled with a handling issue, it proved a costly error.

"I couldn't have done anything else," Ricciardo continued. "I was just on my line. Obviously he got the penalty and all that, and it's obvious whose mistake it was, it doesn't change my race.

"It was out of my hands, you're never going to get that place back in Turn 2 the way it was. It's just overambitious. That's youth."

When NBC's Will Buxton asked if "inexperience" was to blame for Verstappen's error, Ricciardo replied: "That sounds too nice.

"It's not that – probably immaturity, that's the one. Frustrating that it's all over in two corners. I would've liked to have raced today, and that didn't need to be done."

A contrite Verstappen accepted responsibility for the incident, although he told NBC's Buxton, "I think I was put in that position after Turn 1, when I got pushed in the Astroturf.

"We both went deep into Turn 2, and I had of course [Valtteri] Bottas in front of me so I locked the front, and I tried to keep it to the inside but I just kept locking, locking, locking, and then unfortunately I touched Daniel, at the weakest point of the car, on the side. Of course that is not what I want, so sorry to Daniel for that, because I think we always had a good relationship and we showed before that we could race really well together. So this was never my intention to do, of course."