Ricciardo, Verstappen: No F1 team orders at Red Bull

Red Bull Formula 1 drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen claim they will not be subject to team orders despite their clash during last month’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, but said they may be told to “calm down a bit” to prevent a repeat of the collision.

Verstappen and Ricciardo collided while fighting for fourth place in Baku two weeks ago, causing both drivers to retire from the race and costing Red Bull 22 points in the constructors’ championship.

Both drivers received a reprimand for the crash and Red Bull refused to pin the blame on one driver, instead forcing both Ricciardo and Verstappen to apologise to the factory team upon returning to the UK.

Speaking ahead of this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, both Ricciardo and Verstappen confirmed that while outright team orders would not be in place, Red Bull would be watching closely to ensure there was no repeat of their race-ending crash in the future.

“I told the team I want to race, so I don’t want that we just follow each other for 60 laps. But we’re not going to have team orders,” Ricciardo said.

“But if we find ourselves battling too hard or losing time to the others, especially if there is maybe a faster car coming through, then I think the team would step in a bit more before we started banging wheels again.”

“If maybe you see Baku again, I think at one point the team will maybe tell us to calm down a bit and just follow each other in the last few laps,” Verstappen added.

“But in general, I think they still trust us. We also understand that we don’t want that to happen again.”

Red Bull delayed its post-race debrief until both Ricciardo and Verstappen had returned from Baku so they could apologise to the factory before discussing the incident.

“The team normally do a debrief after every race, and they postponed it so both Max and me were there in England. We sent our apologies and told them that it won’t happen again,” Ricciardo said.

“We all talked about it. From all different points of views, from what the drivers could have done better, Max and myself, what the team could have done better, Christian and the decision makers on the pit wall, what the engineers could have done better or different.

“Everyone was involved in the process. We had some long discussions. Obviously we are the drivers and we created in the end the incident. That was an accumulation of events, and it was important to address all areas.

“I don’t think it was just us in that moment. There was a buildup and maybe a way that we could have responded better.”