Daniel Ricciardo has revealed his true feelings following that Azerbaijan Grand Prix crash with then Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen.
Ricciardo and Verstappen were fighting for position when the Australian dived down the inside at Turn 1, only for Verstappen to quickly close the door, but with an immediate loss of downforce, Ricciardo was unable to slow down in time and hit his team-mate, taking them both out of the race.
But Ricciardo admitted he felt no anger at losing out on points through the DNF, instead he was angry with the team for failing to take action against Verstappen who had earlier been overly aggressive whilst defending.
Ricciardo therefore thought the team 'deserved' not to finish the race.
"I guess a few things came up to the surface after that", Ricciardo told Formula 1’s Beyond the Grid podcast when recalling the incident.
"We touched wheels a few times where it was always Max coming into me as opposed to me going into Max. Part of me was waiting for the team to say 'cut the sh*t [to Max]' but I never really got that.
"I eventually passed Max. The undercut wasn’t powerful, [but] I pitted first and eventually Max had come back out in front of me.
"So then I was furious as well, I’m like ‘guys, I’ve put all the hard work in, I’ve passed him and now he’s back in front of me, surely you are just going to let me go this time?'
"So I came on the radio to say something but my engineer was like ‘no, you’re racing Max’, which means no team orders, you have got to pass him again.
"To be honest, at the time of impact, I was just like 'who cares? They [the team] deserve this'. That was my honest feeling. I wasn’t feeling sad or angry that I’ve just lost points.
"I’ll say now. I was more just like ‘f**k you guys’. I think everyone saw it [the crash] coming."
When asked if at that moment he had made his mind up about leaving Red Bull for another team, Ricciardo replied: "Certainly, the week after that, yeah.
"I decided in my mind that I need to move on. But then you go to Monaco like a month later and I have like the highest of highs and start thinking ‘oh I was just emotional in Baku, we’ll figure it out.’
"But, for sure, Baku was a tough one for me to move on from."
