Christian Horner insists his drivers have "very fair" rules to follow when battling after Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez clashed on track in the Austria Sprint race.
They Red Bull racers shared the front row at the start of the short form race. And that set up a tasty battle on lap one when Perez got a better launch off the line.
Indeed, the Mexican had the lead of the race coming out of the first corner. But Verstappen was never going to led that place go without a fight.
He tried moving up the inside on the hull up to turn three. He had to back off, though, when Perez squeezed the amount of room he had on track.
He went a little too far, pushing two of Verstappen's wheels onto the wet grass which could have had serious consequences. The Dutchman kept control, but then could not brake properly heading into the corner.
That meant Perez had to take evasive action and drive off the circuit to avoid a crash. Speaking over the radio, both drivers made it clear they were upset with each other.
Verstappen complained: "He pushed me off man, what the f***?" while Perez asked: "What's wrong with Max, man?" And after the session they had a feisty discussion about it which was caught by the TV cameras.
Verstappen had also called for the incident to be reviewed internally by the team. The incident will do nothing to dispel rumours that have long-persisted that the two Red Bull racers do not see eye-to-eye on a personal level.
Ever the diplomat, team principal Horner did his best to play down the potential seriousness of what happened. "I think Checo had Max unsighted on the right-hand side," he said. "Thankfully, they didn't collect each other and a one-two finish is a great result for the team.
"The rules are very fair: race hard and give each other space." Asked if he felt they had followed those rules, Horner replied: At [turns] one and three, yes. It was the bit in the middle where it got a bit tasty but maybe Checo didn't see Max."
