No Red Bull Civil War Between Max and Ricciardo…Yet

The massive collision between Red Bull teammates Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo was one of the biggest talking points in Baku. Whenever teammates have collided, the atmosphere has usually soured, Hamilton-Rosberg, Vettel-Webber. These names were guilty of committing the cardinal sin of taking out their teammates. So when the 2 Red Bull teammates took each other out, a Red Bull Civil War would be expected under normal circumstances.

However, Verstappen has insisted that his relationship with Ricciardo has not changed. The duo collided during the Baku race after Ricciardo slid into the back of Verstappen at Turn 1. The two had been battling for fourth position behind Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari and the 2 Mercedes.

The Red Bull chiefs refused to take sides and said that both were equally to blame. Both Ricciardo and Verstappen would be made to apologise to Milton Keynes staff before Spain.

Verstappen admitted that he and Ricciardo cleared the air between them and there was no hint of a falling out.

“Obviously we talked about it,” said Verstappen. “Daniel and I are completely OK with each other.

“We can both see that what happened isn’t good for the team.

“We’d already had some tough battles, but everything was fine. It was hard but fair.

“Now we’ll obviously need to go to the team in Milton Keynes and apologise.

“But then we need to stay positive, because I think we have a really good chance coming in Barcelona. We’ve got a lot of updates on the car, it all looks really good.”

Reporters tried to draw comparisons with the Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg rivalry. However, Verstappen shot down such claims and denied a potential Red Bull civil war. He said: “No, no. We spoke to each other a lot after the crash. We were both so disappointed. I don’t believe it will change our relationship.”

“It’s obviously really bad for the entire team how many points we lost. There’s no place for a crash with your team-mate,” he said.

“Something like that shouldn’t happen again. Coming together with your team just can’t happen. Crashes can happen, but obviously not with your team-mate.”