George Russell and his Mercedes team were accused of "trying to make headlines" in response to his theory that Red Bull might be deliberately hiding their true race pace.
The RB19s are clearly the dominant cars on the grid and Red Bull have taken full advantage to win all three races so far this season. But the margins of victory haven't necessarily been as significant as might be expected when there is such a clear performance gap.
That led to the accusation from Russell that Red Bull might be sandbagging to avoid the FIA getting involved in a bid to make the title race more competitive. "For sure they're holding back," Russell told the BBC Chequered Flag podcast after last weekend's race in Melbourne.
"I think they are almost embarrassed to show their full potential because the faster they seem, the more that the sport is going to try to hold them back somehow. I think realistically they probably have seven-tenths advantage over the rest of the field. I don't know what the pace difference looks like at the moment but Max has got no reason to be pushing it, nor has Red Bull."
But the BBC's Rosanna Tennant, on the same podcast, expressed her belief that Russell might have an ulterior motive. She said: "People do a good job, they rise to the top, they become the winners. If they keep on doing a good job, they're the winners for quite a long time and we have these periods of domination in Formula 1, or have had these periods of domination.
"Now we're moving into a Red Bull phase again and I think Mercedes are questioning whether Red Bull are actually holding back so that they don't become penalised at some point in the season by FIA, by Formula 1. I did ask Max that after the race, but I think what he was trying to explain was that, actually, it's not some master plan so that they can continue winning.
"I think it's actually more sort of case-by-case and so during the race, he didn't want to race off, he wanted to make sure he made it to the end for many reasons. Not because they think they have an issue necessarily but so that they don't run out of engines or they don't run out of tyres. I think it might be trying to make headlines from Mercedes there."
Red Bull chief Christian Horner laughed off Russell's accusation, quipping: "That's very generous of him! His team would know too well about those kinds of advantages." And Verstappen even went as far as to assert that the FIA would be powerless to peg his team back.
The Dutchman said: "I mean, I think anyway, there's nothing really they can do. We just try to do the best we can with the development of the car, but it's also about pace management, because we didn't really know – I think no-one really knew – how long that hard tyre would last.
"So it's about just bringing it home because we had a bit of pace, I think, over the others and there's no need to try to gain half a second a lap and destroy your tyres to the end. Because you never know, a Safety Car can happen, red flags – like we had today. So yeah, it's not necessary to risk all that."
