Daniel Ricciardo has blown up at young teammate Yuki Tsunoda, after the latter almost caused a crash after the chequered flag fell on the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen won the race from teammate Sergio Perez and the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz.
Oscar Piastri finished in the points in 8th, while Ricciardo finished 13th for RB – one spot in front of his teammate.
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But on the cool-down lap back to the pits after crossing the finish line, Tsunoda – incensed by an earlier team order to let Ricciardo past in the closing stages of the race – dive bombed the Aussie into a tight hairpin, locked his front brakes and ran wide.
He then accelerated back past Ricciardo, and came within centimetres of crashing into the sister car.
“What the f–k?,” Ricciardo exclaimed to his race engineer.
“I’ll save it – he’s a f–king helmet.”
Starting from P14, Ricciardo had an extra set of soft tyres at his disposal, and was using them to good effect in the latter part of the race.
He was one of only three cars – the other two being the two Red Bulls up front – on the soft tyre for the final stint.
Tsunoda was at that moment locked in a battle with the Haas of Kevin Magnussen, and was furious about being asked to let Ricciardo through.
He didn’t immediately follow the instruction, which cost crucial time.
By the time he pulled over to let the Aussie past, race leader Max Verstappen had caught the three of them. The battle was dissipated as they all moved aside as per the rules.
Ricciardo lost more than a second to Magnussen, and the laps it took to catch him took extra life out of the tyres, and he was unable to get the move done.
He did not cede the position to Tsunoda before the flag, as is sometimes the case. He would later tell media he would’ve done so had he been instructed to.
After the race, Tsunoda told media he was angry about the call because he was in wheel-to-wheel combat with Magnussen when he got the call.
“I was just about to overtake Magnussen, I was side by side on the main straight and got a driver swap [for the] last few laps,” Tsunoda said.
“To be honest, I didn’t understand what the team thought. So, I have to understand what they were thinking, but so far I don’t understand.
“We have to review what was their thoughts, to be honest. I don’t really understand.”
But in his own interview, Ricciardo suggested Tsunoda should have been expecting the call, given it had been discussed in pre-race strategy meetings.
“It was highly likely that we starting on the new soft meant I was going to finish the race on a new soft and have an attacking last stint – the call was quite expected,” he said.
“I know when you are in the race and you are a little bit more emotional and it is a bit more intense but this call came as no surprise.
“Obviously every lap counts when you are on this tyre and trying to get this little bit of grip out of it so you need to react to the team call.
“Also, we weren’t in a points position yet so there was really nothing to lose. Just let me go and see if I can do something about it.”
The trio finished only a few seconds behind the Sauber of Guanyu Zhou in 11th.
The Aussie said he would’ve had no issue letting Tsunoda through at the finish, given they were outside the points anyway.
“In the end, whether I am 13th or 14th, I don’t know if any driver cares about that but I don’t,” he said.
“If the team had let him back by before the finish line I would’ve done it because it means nothing to me.
“Unless we are in the points, who cares?
“But it is really just if you are in the points position – if he was letting me by for ninth and he is 10th or whatever then maybe you swap again if I cannot get eighth.
“But in that situation, it didn’t matter today.
“It is race one of 24 and yes there was a little bit of conflict today but I don’t want that to set the tone.
“I think we will talk about it now in the briefing honestly. Hopefully, once he has calmed down, he can say, ‘OK, yeah I should’ve moved a lap earlier’.”
Ricciardo said he believed the initial call came too late anyway.
“When the soft tyre is like this every lap is crucial, I think I already lost probably two-and-a-half good laps of the tyre and that was maybe the difference.
“Could we have caught Stroll in 10th? No. At best we may have got Zhou [Guanyu]. So, points were still tricky but we had to try something.”
At the front, Verstappen got a great start before notching up the fifth ‘Grand Slam’ of his career – pole position, led every lap, and recorded the fastest lap.
It’s his eighth consecutive race win, dating back to the Singapore Grand Prix last year, where Carlos Sainz scored the only non-Red Bull win of the season.
The F1 season continues next Sunday morning (AEDT) in Saudi Arabia, before heading to Melbourne for the Australian Grand Prix.