“He will always race hard” – Daniel Ricciardo is happy to note former Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen is safe and back on the race track after his opening lap crash with Lewis Hamilton at Silverstone.
Daniel Ricciardo knows all about Max Verstappen from his time at Red Bull. The team of them clashed a couple of times, eventually leading to Ricciardo leaving the team and joining Renault.
4️⃣ years ago, Ricciardo called Verstappen a sore loser after their crash on the first lap in Hungary 🤬
The crash took Daniel out of the race at Turn 3 💥#OnThisDay #F1 #HungarianGP #Motorsport pic.twitter.com/ugVpVhVb9x
— Motorsport.com (@Motorsport) July 30, 2021
But Ricciardo feels Verstappen has matured considerably since his early days in F1. He was also delighted with the fact that Verstappen is fit and fine after his 51G British GP crash with Lewis Hamilton.
“The main thing was that Max got away safely. He was tested all evening but he is here racing this weekend.
“For his health and wellbeing it’s great, but also for the sake of the championship. There’s a great battle going on between Lewis and Max, so for the health of the championship it’s obviously great that he’s here competing.
“Max was under a bit of pressure in his first couple of years in F1 with some of the moves and I definitely think he has ironed a lot of that out and matured as a driver.
“For sure, he will always race hard, but I think we were team-mates for three years and came together twice – that’s pretty low numbers.”
Ricciardo gives verdict on crash
Like most neutrals, Ricciardo also considers the crash to be nothing more than a racing incident. He feels it was neither driver’s fault, as like every professional driver, they too know their “racing etiquette”.
“Watching Max’s on-board, there was room on the inside. Of course, they were racing hard but I would say hard but fair. Max was respecting Lewis, or knew he was there and gave him a bit of room. You know what’s what. I didn’t really see anything out of line with the incident itself.
“Obviously, the consequence was really the big talking point and it’s a shame it happened at one of the quickest corners on the calendar. But luckily, Max was more or less okay and he’s here to race this weekend. Deep down, all of us know racing etiquette and when to squeeze and when not to. We are pretty clear with that.”
