Verstappen AND Ricciardo to blame for Baku crash

Both Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo were handed reprimands for the collision which ended both fo their races at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. The Red Bull drivers were blasted by team principal Christian Horner and Helmut Marko after their races ended in a collision at turn one in Baku.

The Red Bull rivals spent much of their time during the race in close quarters, going wheel-to-wheel on three separate occasions before a fourth Ricciardo passing attempt ended in disaster.

Though Verstappen's season has been characterised by on-track mistakes and collisions so far, the Red Bull hierarchy were in no doubt that Ricciardo was equally to blame - a view shared by the stewards.

Ricciardo had thrilled on his way to victory in Shanghai, but his attempt to dive into an ever-closing gap was over-ambitious, while Verstappen was guilty of weaving across the track to block his team-mate on both lines.

The stewards report confirmed that Ricciardo admitted he left the move too late, reading: "It was obvious... that although the incident had its origins in the moves by car 33 [Verstappen], the driver of car 3 also contributed to the incident.

"Both drivers expressed regret about their respective contributions to the incident during the stewards' meeting."

Both Ricciardo and Verstappen made public pleas to be allowed to continue to go wheel-to-wheel, rather than be subjected to team orders.

A visibly furious Horner told Sky Sports afterwards: "Both drivers screwed up and they’ll both be apologising. sometimes they forget it's a team sport. We discussed about them giving each other space. this was the culmination of two guys taking things in their own hands which shouldn’t happen.

"Our intention is to let them keep racing but they’ve got to show the team and each other respect. They’ve been reminded they're part of a team and they have a responsibility, they're both highly paid individuals, they have to act with the team's interest not their own. The message was delivered very strongly."