Verstappen: Mercedes responsible for Hamilton glory

And the fact that it's obvious makes him look a bit like a pompous prick. I mean, everyone knows you need a good car. But to stated it that way sounds salty, rubbishing the accomplishment. I agree any top driver could have won, but I mean top driver, that's maybe 3 or 4 people.

@BLADE Stats show the following:

- Verstappen out qualified Ricciardo
- On sundays he was mostly the leading Redbull,
- Ricciardo did not just switch to Renault on a performance basis


I like Ricciardo and I hoped he stated another year with Redbull but decided to join Renault and that somehow feels that let himself down.

@BOUDY, in Ricciardo’s case it’s fair to look beyond the stats. Verstappen had the team on his side, and even then Verstappen didn’t beat Ricciaodo by a huge margin, particularly given Ricciardo didn’t finish 8 races to Verstappen’s 4, and in Verstappen’s case his non-finishes were in the main his fault.

As for qualifying, don’t forget that Ricciardo earned two poles to Verstappen’s zero. I also think the strategy, setup and power levels given to Ricciardo in qualifying favoured Verstappen.

There is no doubt that in Mexico Ricciardo under drove the car in the lead up to Q3 to ensure his car was given maximum power so that in his final lap he could deny Verstappen the ‘Youngest Ever Pole Position’ record, which not only surprised Verstappen, but shocked the team also. Horner’s body language and Verstappen’s comments after it happened, that he ”needed to speak with the team”, showed that pole was supposed to go to Verstappen.

And he didn't let himself down moving to Renault. It was clear from the Azerbaijan race that Verstappen was the favoured driver and that Ricciardo had to leave the team if he didn’t want to play second fiddle to Verstappen.

He is now the number one driver in a team, he is now out of the clutches of Red Bull and he has given himself the best chance strategically of outperforming Verstappen, which he will need to do if he wants to move to Ferrari or Mercedes in the future.

Thanks for your comments but I just can't see that Redbull were favouring Verstappen. They were given both equal materials and Ricciardo was able to beat Verstappen on occasion. There is an natural gravitation towards the best drivers maybe that's what Ricciardo was experiencing.

I would be really surprised if redbull asked renault to turn down the engine in favour of another driver. That would simply not happen since it would be too hard to make that work. It would also be hard to keep quiet.

Verstappen beat Ricciardo fair and square and not artificially as you are suggesting.

Verstappen out performed Ricciardo in qualifying and as such would have always been given the prime strategy which comes with that performance. Given that Verstappens tyre management is one of the best he will have an advantage in that area as well.

Ricciardo is a very good driver and a great team mate and I wish him all the luck in Renault however both Mercedes and Ferrari had the change to sign him and the both neglected to do so.

Ricciardo had the opportunity to lead the Redbull team but was not able to do so because of the quality of his team mate.

This is the main reason why he needed to change;if he stayed another season he would have fallen even more behind which would not help him getting a drive in a top team.

To my mind, Azerbaijan was the race that proved Verstappen was Red Bull's favoured driver. Even when substantially down on points at that point of the Championship, Red Bull placed Verstappen ahead of Ricciardo.

Go back one race before in China and Red Bull had been on fire with their analysis of pit stops, double banking their cars to gain advantage. Their strategy was flawless, in fact Ricciardo should have genuflected to his team as it was his team that had ‘won’ him the race.

In Azerbaijan Ricciardo was again out driving Verstappen and on one occasion Verstappen deliberately drove into the side of Ricciardo to prevent him getting past, but with no comments from the team, and with no orders to let Ricciardo by despite Ricciardo's car being the faster on track.

When Ricciardo finally got past, the team’s decision was then to pit Ricciardo first, no doubt knowing that the overcut would have favoured Verstappen thereby putting their favoured driver back in front of Ricciardo.

All of the other teams knew that the track favoured the overcut. A team simply does not go from being the leading team – strategy wise – in one race, to being unable to identify an undercut track from an overcut track in the next race.

In terms of Verstappen steering into Ricciardo and then his double movement on Ricciardo that caused the accident that took them both out, imagine the ramifications for Ricciardo had he pulled those moves on Verstappen!

Given Ricciardo’s mood / attitude after the race, if he’d not already made the decision, I suspect that it was what went on at Azerbaijan that cemented Ricciardo's decision to leave Redbull. He was never going to win a Championship with Red Bull whilst ever Verstappen was in the team.

@BOUDY, to be clear, I’m not suggesting that Red Bull asked Renault to turn down the engine, I’m suggesting that Red Bull itself did not provide maximum power to Ricciardo’s engine when they most likely did to Verstappen.

And I am suggesting that once it was clear that they had 3rd place in the Constructor’s Championship locked down and there was no chance of 2nd place, that Red Bull did make strategy decisions to ensure that Verstappen was ahead of Ricciardo in the Drivers Championship.

As far as I know its not Redbull who have that capability; there is an group of tech guys that are in service of Renault that looks after the team engines. Either way you are suggesting that Redbull somehow sabotaged one of their own drivers. No way that would happen in a team like Redbull that wasn't fighting for the WC but still wanted race wins.

Redbull wanted race wins and I don't think that they actually had an preference on either driver. I wouldn't make sense to put a driver at an disadvantage.

The most likely scenario is that Verstappen was just quicker than Ricciardo and Ricciardo couldn't handle that situation hence he left. Believing an conspiracy over a simpler scenario doesn't strike me as productive solution.

All I am suggesting is that once a team’s position in the Constructors Championship has been solidified, all of the top teams will want their number one driver to be ahead of their number two driver in the Drivers Championship.

Of course a team will always go for first place, but in Red Bulls case there were very limited opportunities for that to happen.

In circumstances where a race win was not possible given the strength of other teams, I do believe that Verstappen was the favoured driver. It would otherwise be a statistical anomaly that such a large proportion of Ricciardo’s mechanical failures happened after he announced his future departure from the team.

Teams are always adjusting the power settings of their cars either when in close battles with competing teams or to protect engines over the longer term, so I do believe that it is naive to suggest that a team would not or could not make similar decisions to favour the position of a particular driver within their own team.