Sergio Perez has criticised Daniel Ricciardo for being “disrespectful” in the wake of their Q1 exit at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Ricciardo was behind Perez on-track as the field carried out their warm-up lap during the conclusion of Q1, and tried to overtake his opponent around the outside of the final turn.
Perez, though, remained committed and the pair ended up compromising each other’s laps, and both were eliminated from the session.
“I think we could have got through to Q2 to be honest,” said Perez. “It would have needed a good lap, but we didn’t get it.
“My final run was badly compromised when all the cars were trying to find space in the final corner. That’s where Ricciardo tried to do something crazy, overtaking me in the last corner.
“He screwed up his lap and my lap too because I ended up too close to [Lando] Norris and Daniel was close behind me.
“We all know traffic is tricky in Q1. We spoke about it in the Drivers' Briefing and the importance of being respectful of each other.
“For me, it was quite disrespectful. He's an experienced driver and I didn't expect that from him.
“We know this track isn't the best for us anyway, but now we're really in a tough place for tomorrow. It’s been a bad day for us, so let's hope it gets better in the race.”
Ricciardo commented: "It actually felt OK but obviously the last run is when you’ve got to do it and it was just a bit of a mess basically, opening the lap. We put ourselves in traffic and at that point, I felt we could have known what was going to happen better coming up to the last corner, if I needed to create space earlier.
"So I wasn’t creating space and then we got to the last corner and everyone was backed up, so what do you do, do you try and pass them and keep your tyre temperature there, or do you hang back and start the lap with cold tyres? I tried to go and then obviously Perez and the others went.
"I felt like Perez and I just screwed each other but just too late trying to make something happen and then the lap is compromised. Right now, it’s certainly the most upset I’ve been in a while."
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