MOTORSPORT: Ricciardo's 'worst-case scenario'

Daniel Ricciardo and his Red Bull Racing teammate Max Verstappen collided in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, ending the race for both of them in what Ricciardo called “the worst-case scenario”.

“The only thing we can both say is sorry to the team – this is the last thing we wanted,” carsales.com.au global ambassador Ricciardo said.

“This was the worst-case scenario and everyone is pretty heartbroken.”

Lewis Hamilton lucked in on his first win of the year in his Mercedes after Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel had looked set for his third victory of the season, but outbraked himself and finished fourth, and Hamilton’s teammate Valtteri Bottas copped a puncture, perhaps from debris not cleaned up after the Ricciardo-Verstappen crash.

The Red Bull pair, who had been running fourth and fifth on the streets of Baku, shared the blame for their double demise and were both reprimanded by the race stewards.

Team principal Christian Horner did not blame one driver more than the other, said he wanted to the pair to continue to race freely, but they had to realise that making contact was “unacceptable”.

There had been earlier contact between the pair, initiated by Verstappen, as they diced incessantly.

With barely 10 laps to go, Ricciardo may have got impatient as he tried to overtake his young teammate on the inside.

Verstappen appeared from Ricciardo’s on-board camera to swerve right then left and the Australian rammed into him, with wreckage strewn across the track and they ended up down an escape road.

RBR technical chief Adrian Newey walked away from the pit wall in disgust.

Ricciardo, race winner in China two weeks earlier and in Azerbaijan last year, has dropped to fifth in the drivers’ world championship after Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen finished runner-up to Hamilton, who now leads with 70 points to Vettel’s 66.

Raikkonen is third on 48, ahead of Bottas on 40 and Ricciardo 37, while Verstappen is eighth on 18 – behind McLaren’s Fernando Alonso and Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg.

Ferrari leads the constructors’ championship with 114 points to Mercedes’ 110 and Renault-powered Red Bull a distant third on 55.

Mercedes team chairman Niki Lauda, a triple world champion driver last century, said the Red Bull crash had been 70 per cent Verstappen’s fault because he had twice changed his line.

“If you move on him (Ricciardo) all the time, where does the poor guy have to go?” Lauda said.

Accident-prone 20-year-old Verstappen said he and Ricciardo would make sure it did not happen again.

“I don’t think not letting us race anymore is the way forward, but of course we will talk this over as a team and learn from it,” he said.

Horner said his drivers had been urged before the race to allow each other space.

“What is obviously annoying is that we’ve given away an awfully large amount of points today, so both drivers will be apologising to all the members of staff that work so hard to put these cars together,” he said.

Mercedes-powered Force India celebrated an unexpected podium with Sergio Perez third, surpassing the seven top-three finishes of fellow Mexican, the late Pedro Rodriguez. Unlike Rodriguez, who won two GPs, Perez has never been a victor.

It was a much better day for Renault’s factory team, with Carlos Sainz Junior fourth and Nico Hulkenberg also racing the Red Bulls until a brake lock-up sent him crashing out of the race.

Charles Leclerc, a 20-year-old rookie from Monaco, was the day’s biggest star though, scoring his first points with sixth place in a Ferrari-powered Sauber – the best result for the Swiss-based team since late 2015.

The McLaren-Renaults of Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne were seventh and ninth, split by the Williams-Mercedes of Lance Stroll.

Brendon Hartley scored the first point by a New Zealand driver since the late Chris Amon in 1976 as he completed the top 10 in Baku in a Honda-engined Toro Rosso.

F1 now moves into its European season, starting with the Spanish GP in Barcelona on May 13.