MOTORSPORT: Ricciardo furious at Verstappen

The cordial relationship between Daniel Ricciardo and Red Bull Racing teammate Max Verstappen is at breaking point after what Ricciardo branded the “amateur” mistake by the Dutch teenager at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

“He doesn’t like it when a teammate gets in front of him,” Ricciardo said of Verstappen, who outbraked himself at the second corner and hit Ricciardo. The collision immediately put the Australian out of the race as leaking fluid on his tyres sent him into a spin – and retirement.

Verstappen’s speed (after serving a 10sec penalty) only reinforced to Ricciardo that a podium had gone begging and that he might even have repeated his 2014 victory in Budapest. if not for his teammate’s error.

The pair and the team will have debriefed by now and, for all the anger he felt, carsales.com.au global ambassador Ricciardo is likely to move on quickly. He might forgive, but not entirely forget – and be on guard against Verstappen from now.

Teammates invariably can’t be best mates.

Ferrari scored a one-two in Hungary, ahead of the two Mercedes factory cars despite victor Sebastian Vettel having concerns with his steering throughout the race.

Somehow the mercurial Fernando Alonso set the fastest lap of the race in his Honda-powered McLaren on the way to an incredible sixth place.

Australia’s Will Power was runner-up to one of his Penske teammates, American Josef Newgarden, in the latest IndyCar race at Mid-Ohio, while Audi has won the world’s major GT race, the Spa 24 Hours in Belgium, and the Formula E electric open-wheeler championship.

Magic moment for Toyota and its new rally star
But the miraculous performance of the weekend was in the Finnish ninth round of the World Rally Championship. There Toyota finished first and third with its Tommi Makinen-developed Yaris despite its main driver being out of the running.

Esapekka Lappi, a 26-year-old Finn in only his fourth event at the top level of rallying, was the victor.

Countryman and veteran tester Juho Hanninen was third, his first WRC podium and a little unlucky not to be second. He had hit a hay bale on the last day.

Welshman Elfyn Evans in a Ford Fiesta finished 0.3sec ahead of Hanninen after having started the short final day fourth. The was a career-best result for Evans, while 23-year-old Finn Teemu Suninen took fourth in a Fiesta at only his second drive in a World Rally Car.

Toyota team leader Jari-Matti Latvala, yet another Finn, was denied victory when the electronic control unit in his Yaris failed while leading on the second leg of the rally. He resumed on the final day and won three more stages without a chance of overall victory.

Four-time world champion Frenchman Sebastien Ogier’s hopes were blown on day one when he crashed his Ford Fiesta sideways into a tree after a suspension damper broke.

Hyundai, after the best rally in its history at the previous round, was no match for Toyota in Finland, but its lead driver, Belgian Thierry Neuville, has taken the drivers’ championship lead after sixth place in Finland.

Neuville and Ogier both have 160 points, but the Belgian has won three rallies this season to the Frenchman’s two.

Estonian Ott Tanak is third in a Fiesta with 119 points, while Latvala is fourth on 114.

Ford outfit M-Sport still leads the teams championship from Hyundai, 285 points to 251, with third-placed Toyota now on 193 and Citroen on 135. The French make’s C3s were fifth (Craig Breen) and eighth (Kris Meeke) in Finland.

Four rallies remain – the next on tarmac in Germany on August 17-20. The season finale is Rally Australia at Coffs Harbour on November 16-19.

New winner Lappi has had success in Australia before. He won the 2013 round of the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship at the International Rally of Queensland in a Skoda Fabia S2000 (although Victorian Eli Evans won the event outright in a Honda Jazz).

Lappi’s weekend triumph, by 36sec, came despite breaking a wheel on the penultimate stage. He is the sixth different winner this WRC season.

“I’m on my home soil so I should have been strong here and I was, but a victory was beyond my dreams,” Lappi said.

“I’m not normally an emotional person, but this is amazing. The team [Makinen’s Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team] has built such a fast car in such a short time.”

Latvala won with the Yaris in Sweden in February – just the second outing for Toyota in its return to the WRC after 17 years out of it. In Finland the Yaris won 18 of 25 stages, with one-twos on 13 stages – and a one-two-three on one.

Makinen, a multiple world champion driver who as a team boss now developed the Yaris primarily in Finland, said the team had put in a huge effort to make a major step forward with the car for the event in his country.

“It has been almost perfect – the problem for Jari-Matti on Saturday was really the only disappointment,” Makinen said.

All three Hyundai i20s struggled with set-up in Finland after the Korean manufacturer had been on the podium at the previous six rounds.

New Zealander Hayden Paddon dropped out on both Friday and Saturday and said the event had been proof that “anything that can go wrong does go wrong”.

“One day we will look back and laugh at our bad luck this year. I am sure we could have fought for the podium this weekend,” Paddon said.

Ricciardo loses out as Ferrari turns table on Merc
Daniel Ricciardo’s misfortune in Budapest meant the Hungarian GP was the sixth time in 11 Formula 1 races this year at which Red Bull Racing has had only one of its two drivers score world championship points.

Kimi Raikkonen, who finished within a second of Ferrari teammate and championship leader Sebastian Vettel last night, is now just one point behind fourth-placed Ricciardo (117-116).

Vettel has stretched his lead over Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton to 14 points (202-188), with Valtteri Bottas in the other Mercedes third (169).

Finn Bottas was on the podium for the fifth straight race, and eighth time this year (including two wins), after Hamilton slowed on the last lap to hand him third place.

Mercedes had instructed Bottas to let Hamilton past him earlier, knowing that on his soft tyres he had the better chance of reeling in the Ferraris, but when he couldn’t get within 1.7sec of the lead he graciously gave Bottas back the final podium spot.

“I don’t know whether that will come back to bite me in the backside or not [at the end of the championship tussle with Vettel], but I said at the beginning of the year I want to win it the right way,” triple champion Hamilton said.

“I think today was the right way to do things. I’m a man of my word. I am a team player.”

Hamilton commented: “The mind is more cut-throat… [but] My heart tells me the right thing to do was to let Valtteri by. Hopefully in the future it will pay dividends.”

Hamilton has had just one podium in the past four races – his victory at the British GP two weeks ago.

While Vettel’s victory was his first since Monaco in May, it was his fourth of the year – the same number as Hamilton.

Raikkonen, who felt the pressure from Hamilton most, had been annoyed that he was not allowed by Ferrari to overtake Vettel but later accepted the one-two for the Prancing Horse stable, its first quinella in Hungary since Michael Schumacher led home Rubens Barrichello in 2004, was a great result for the team.

Mercedes still leads the constructors’ championship handsomely, with 357 points to Ferrari’s 318. Red Bull is a distant third on 184.

Ricciardo said Verstappen’s move at the second corner “wasn’t on” and was “amateur to say the least”.

“There was no room … it was a very poor mistake. I don’t think that it’s trying too hard or that there is an excuse for it.

“Me and Max will talk privately and sort it out.

Verstappen said he had “lost quite a bit of downforce and locked the front tyres” as he entered the corner behind Bottas.

“From there I was just a passenger,” he said.

“It is never my intention to hit anyone, especially not your teammate – and especially with the relationship I have with Daniel. This is not nice and I apologise to Daniel for that – and also to the team because we could have scored some good points here.

“I’ll speak with Daniel … we’ll sort it,” the young Dutchman said.

While Red Bull has narrowed the gap to the top two teams in recent races, the big improver – at last – has been McLaren-Honda. Not only was Fernando Alonso sixth in Budapest, but teammate Stoffel Vandoorne was 10th – albeit a lap down.

It was the first time this season the McLarens had both finished in the points, while Alonso’s stunning fastest lap (on the penultimate tour of the short, tight and twisty Hungaroring) was only his second since 2013, when he was at Ferrari.

IndyCar, Formula E and the Spa 24 Hours
Will Power qualified on pole position for the 13th of 17 rounds of the IndyCar championship and led the opening laps before teammate and fellow front-row starter Josef Newgarden overtook him.

Newgarden, the American in his first season with Team Penske, dived by Power at the end of the back straight of the Mid-Ohio circuit on the 13th of 90 laps and was never headed, finishing 5.1556sec ahead of the man from Toowoomba.

It was his second straight victory and third for the season, giving him the series lead ahead of another Penske-Chevrolet driver, Brazilian Helio Castroneves.

New Zealander Scott Dixon’s ninth place at Mid-Ohio in his Honda-powered Chip Ganassi Racing car dropped him from first to third in the standings, albeit only one point behind Castroneves and eight behind Newgarden.

Power is fifth – 52 points off Newgarden – while Penske’s fourth driver and reigning champion, Frenchman Simon Pagenaud, is fourth.

In Montreal, Canada, Brazilian Lucas di Grassi became the third champion in three seasons of the electric single-seater series Formula E.

It was a horror weekend for the previous champion, Switzerland’s Sebastien Buemi, who also paid the price for having skipped a recent round because of a clash with the World Endurance Championship, in which he drives for Toyota.

In Formula E he races for Renault e.dams, while di Grassi delivered victory – in the first of Montreal’s two races and then the series – for Abt Schaeffler Audi Sport.

The Brazilian had been third in the first season of Formula E, when his countryman Nelson Piquet Junior was champion, and runner-up to Buemi last season.

Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne, a one-time F1 teammate of Daniel Ricciardo at Toro Rosso, won in Formula E for the first time on Sunday.

German manufacturers Mercedes, BMW and Porsche will enter the series in the next couple of years.

Meanwhile, an Audi R8 LMS won the Spa 24 Hours with Germans Markus Winkelhock and

Christopher Haase and Frenchman Jules Gounon driving for factory-backed Sainteloc Racing.

They finished 11 seconds ahead of an M-Sport Bentley after a Mercedes-AMG lost its chance of victory, having to be held in the pits to avoid a driver doing a stint longer than the maximum 65 minutes.

It was Audi’s fourth success in the world’s biggest GT3 race after wins in 2011, ’12 and ’14.

Of the 63 cars in this year’s field, 36 were competing for overall honours on the revered 7km Spa circuit.

Meanwhile, a new 12-hour race at Tony Quinn’s Hampton Downs circuit in New Zealand will become part of a three-round Australasian GT3 series along with the Bathurst 12-Hour and Sepang 12-Hour in Malaysia.

That will be known as the Asia-Pacific 36 Series.

The NZ race, expected to be run for the first time in October 2019, may also become part of the Australian Endurance Championship, while the Bathurst 12-Hour will remain part of the Intercontinental GT Challenge along with the Spa 24 Hours and Suzuka 10 Hours (replacing the Sepang event).