Verstappen: I'm worried about Red Bull team orders

Max Verstappen has admitted that he is worried about the prospect of Red Bull introducing team orders, much like Force India utilised last year, following the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in which he and team-mate Daniel Ricciardo were forced to prematurely retire after crashing into each other.

The Red Bull duo remained close to each other in the race in Baku at the weekend, but the event quickly finished for them both when Ricciardo attempted an overtake on Turn One, only for a collision to wipe out their RB14 vehicles.

The incident has been slammed by Red Bull bosses Helmut Marko and Christian Horner, who believe the fault lies with both drivers. Even though Ricciardo is the driver who instigated the overtaking manoeuvre which led to the crash, Verstappen insists there is no problem at all between him and the Australian.

“Obviously we talked about it,” Verstappen told Autosport of the incident.

“Daniel and I are completely okay 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.”

Last season, Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon regularly clashed on and off the track and the situation got so dire that Force India had to issue team orders on the duo. There is speculation that if things get out of control with Verstappen and Ricciardo then similar orders may be introduced at Red Bull, but the Dutchman does not think the situation calls for such drastic measures.

“Yes [I am worried], but I don't think it's gone that far," Verstappen added when quizzed about the prospect of team orders.

"That's good, but we need to think about the team as a whole – and at the end of [Sunday] we didn't do that.”