30/04/2018
NEWS STORY
Mercedes chairman - and three-time world champion - Niki Lauda, believes that Max Verstappen must accept the majority of the blame for the incident which saw both Red Bulls crash out of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix yesterday as they battled for forth position.
Having battled for much of the race, with Verstappen appearing to deliberately hit and force his teammate wide at one stage, the pair finally came to grief on the 39th lap in an incident that was to totally change the shape of the race.
As Red Bull's Christian Horner, Helmut Marko and Adrian Newey did their very best to hide their disgust - all clearly failing - Lauda was asked what he would do in their situation.
"Go home and cry!" he admitted.
"No, it's a disaster," he continued, the Austrian having witnessed such an incident when Lewis Hamilton was partnered by Nico Rosberg. "We had it once.
"For me, it is 70 percent Verstappen and 30 percent Ricciardo," he added. "He was moving on him all the time, where can the poor guy go?"
Asked how he would deal with the situation - which has happened in the past, not only with Verstappen and Ricciardo, but previously with Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel, Lauda admitted: "I would bring them in the office together with Toto, and tell them how much less they will get paid because of the damage they have done. Really, we thought about this once but we didn't have to do it."
However, Red Bull's motor sport advisor - and Lord High Executioner - Helmut Marko, believes both were to blame.
"It was a racing accident between the two," he told Sky Sports, "there was not more fault for one or the other.
"We always let the drivers race, we don't have a number one, we don't have a number two, but we expect responsibility from the drivers."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Baku, here.