Max Verstappen said he was not informed to ‘not race’ teammate Daniel Ricciardo for victory in Malaysia by Red Bull.
The Dutchman finished second behind Ricciardo, handing Red Bull their first one-two finish since the 2013 Brazilian Grand Prix.
The duo found themselves battling for the win when race leader Lewis Hamilton suffered an engine failure on lap 41. The team double stacked both drivers under the virtual safety car, Ricciardo was serviced before Verstappen and thus gained track advantage.
The Australian held off his young adversary in the closing laps, Verstappen admitted he was pushing really hard to try and pressure Ricciardo into a mistake.
I was pushing,” he said. “But also when you get very close, it overheats tyres and I was on old tyres.
“It was very difficult to get into DRS and, like I said, if you are on old tyres – with new tyres I had a few laps advantage but on older tyres to get within a second is very hard.
“Until the last lap we were pushing really hard. The team said we were free to race but in a clean way and that is what we did.”
Red Bull’s one-two see’s the Milton Keynes-based outfit pull further ahead of Ferrari in the battle for second in the Constructors’ Championship.
