Max Verstappen has blamed Toro Rosso for miscommunication during the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, with the Dutch racer expressing his feelings quite clearly over team radio throughout the race.
After starting a strong fifth, Verstappen could only finish tenth in the race after what can only be described as a scruffy afternoon for the Toro Rosso racer.
During the early stages of the race Verstappen comfortably managed to keep reigning champion Lewis Hamilton at bay before the first round of pit-stops.
After the red flag delay Verstappen’s race began to deteriorate slightly, with miscommunication regarding the second round of pit-stops resulting in a difficult and frustrating end to the team’s afternoon.
“Quite a frustrating afternoon,” explained Verstappen, who unequivocally voiced his anger over team radio.
“We had a great start to the race and were able to keep the Mercedes behind.
“We had great pace and I didn’t have pressure from behind, but after the red flag we had a bit of a miscommunication for the second stop and it got very difficult.
“We have a fantastic car and to finish P10 here is not where we should be.
“I’m very disappointed as this was a great opportunity for us to get a very good result.”
Carlos Sainz was equally disappointed with the team’s result, despite qualifying behind team-mate Verstappen and ending the race ahead of him.
During the latter stages of the race Verstappen was exceptionally vocal in requesting the team to utilise team orders to allow him to overtake the Spaniard.
However, Sainz held his ground and remained ahead of Verstappen, despite making light contact at Turn 15 with his team-mate in what was an thoroughly heated end to the race for the Toro Rosso duo.
“I’m not entirely happy with today’s result because I think we could’ve scored more points with the car we have, but I did everything I could to finish as high up as possible,” said Sainz.
“To finish in P9 is frustrating. The race was chaos, so it was difficult to get it all right.
“After the red flag things got interesting and even though it’s not the easiest of tracks to overtake, I was able to do some good moves – some of them were quite tough!
“I enjoyed it out there but I think we deserved to end up higher up instead of going backwards after qualifying in P7 yesterday."
