Following another techy exchange, Red Bull boss, Christian Horner has played down talk of a rift between world champion and his engineer.

Verstappen and his engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase have had a number of heated exchanges this year, with the Italian-Briton taking no nonsense from the two-time world champion.

Friday saw another as Verstappen asked to be allowed another hot lap in a bid to overhaul Carlos Sainz' time, but Lambiase said no, insisting that it was time to move on to long, high fuel runs in readiness for Sunday.

"We're not going to try again? Because I had a s*** read," moaned Verstappen.

"It's not qualifying, Max," replied a deadpan Lambiase, clearly leaning towards the British side of his background.

"Yeah I know, but I want to have a proper read," insisted Verstappen.

He subsequently obeyed orders, but clearly wasn't happy, and when Lambiase asked, "Did you learn anything?" Verstappen replied "Not really".

"Well done!" said Lambiase.

Sensing increasing friction between the pair, Christian Horner was asked, not for the first time, about the exchanges.

"GP and Max have been together since the first race that Max stepped into the car," he said. "Max is a demanding customer and you've got to be a strong character to deal with that.

"GP, he's our Jason Statham equivalent, they certainly look alike. He deals with him firmly but fairly.

"There's a great respect between the two of them and that comes out of a mutual trust that you must have between an engineer. There's a great bond between the two of them, and a great trust."

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